The Devil We Know
by Lucyrne
Summary: Wes Evans has been murdered in cold blood over Thanksgiving weekend, and Soul is the only family member without an alibi. With Shibusen's top agents tied up at a witches summit, Kid sends Liz and Patty Thompson to the scene. The sisters-turned-sleuths discover that not only does every suspect have a secret to hide, but the specter of a woman long-dead hangs over the entire family.
1. Chapter 1

**This is my entry for Soul Eater Resonance Bang 2015!**

 **First I'd like to thank my artist NotZilon for creating such lovely fanart to accompany my story. Talking to you about the story and Soul Eater lore was really fun, and I really appreciate all the help you gave me :) A big thank you also goes out to my beta squad: sandmancircus, l0chn3ss, professor maka, and therewithasmile. Without your guidance, this fic would be naught but me facedown in a pile of trash. Thanks also go to salt chat for your encouragement. Thank you to the mods for organizing this event! And lastly, thank you, readers, for giving my fic you attention and feedback. I hope you enjoy it!**

 **The cover art was drawn by NotZilon.**

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" _Dead folks can't hurt you none. It's the ones that are alive you have to watch out for."_

Liz Thompson, curled up on her absent meister's throne with a worn paperback copy of _Peyton Place_ open in her lap _,_ read this line and felt her mind dart away from the story and back to someone she didn't expect-her mother.

She didn't think of her dead-beat mom often. At first, Liz missed her because someone had to feed Patty, someone had to find safe shelter beneath bridges and down shadowed alleyways, _someone_ had to beat back the onslaught of urban predators who had wanted a piece of both girls since the day they first stepped on the streets. In the months after their mother's abrupt abandonment, Liz had desperately wanted that person to be anyone but herself.

Time gave Liz distance, which in turn gave her perspective. Mom had tried to love them both in her own way, but that didn't change the fact that she was a heinous, negligent bitch who gave up on parenthood. Liz would never forgive their mother for that. Never. And so Liz stopped thinking about their mother altogether. She became Patty's caretaker, Patty became her universe, and their lives took off from there.

Dead folks can't hurt you none, but what about the people in between life and death? The people who are missing, or unaccounted for, or simply _stuck?_

Liz had cracked open her favorite smutty historical romance _Peyton Place_ for the umpteenth time to find some entertainment during the most boring Thanksgiving holiday she and Patty had ever had. Everyone the Thompson sisters knew had vanished to their own corners of the globe almost overnight. Maka and Soul were somewhere in Bumfuck, New Jersey celebrating the holiday with family. Tsubaki and Black Star used the long weekend as an opportunity to surprise Tsu's parents in Japan. Kim and Jackie were undoubtedly making kissy faces at one another in a dark corner. Ox, Harvar, Kilik, and the twins had certainly gotten lost, though she didn't know where. Thanksgiving dinner was truly a lonely event.

At least their friends were in the same dimension. Kid was back in the witch realm with Professor Stein and Spirit Albarn, negotiating with Maba at a diplomatic summit. Judging by the sparse communication from their meister, the summit wasn't going so well.

The grim reaper last spoke to his weapons on November 26, Thanksgiving Day, through the full-length mirror in the Death Room. "They want reparations for all the witches slaughtered by a Shibusen weapon or meister," Kid had explained. "Eight hundred years worth of conflict and I'm supposed to find a way to apologize for every single soul lost. The concessions Maba is demanding are truly appalling."

"But they killed way more of our people," Patty said. "Don't we get to make a stink about that?"

"Witches are essentially immortal, and their memories are much better than ours." Kid sighed, his breath fogging up his side of the mirror. "Not to mention their record-keeping. We can't even name half of our dead because no one under Father's regime bothered to write them down, but harm _one hair_ on _one witch_ and you'll have thousands scrambling for justice. If I hear one more peep about Flemeth Grimoire, Circe Swine, or Death-damned Jenny Greenteeth, I may truly go mad."

Liz raised a skeptical eyebrow and put her hands on her hips. "Kid, you're Lord Death," she said simply. "They can bitch and moan as much as they want, but the truth is that you're the bigger fish. There's a reason those witches insisted you leave us at home. You scare the crap out of them. Remember that and Maba will cave."

The golden, skull-shaped irises of Kid's eyes warmed at that. "I miss you two," he admitted. "You keep me grounded. Keep my head on straight."

"And we miss you, you pale-as-hell lima bean," Patty said with a smile. Rather than offend, Patty's comment spurred Kid to genuinely smile.

They said their goodbyes and vowed to have a real Thanksgiving the moment Kid was able to come home. Until then, Liz and Patty would switch between prowling Death City and keeping vigil in the Death Room, just in case someone needed them.

So there Liz was, sitting on Kid's throne, morosely flipping through her ratty copy of _Peyton Place_ and wondering whether or not their mother was looking up at them from somewhere in the second circle of hell.

On the other side of the Death Room, Patty had happily assembled a tower out of Jenga blocks and was slowly extracting a brick near the base. She puffed out her cheeks in concentration, adamant that she wouldn't topple the tower so soon. The brick had nearly cleared the tower base when the room was awash with a bright blue glow.

The Death Room mirror was 12 feet tall and outlined in a thin, brassy frame that drew the eye to a cartoonish skull mounted at the very top. The glass shined blue, signalling an incoming call. Excited, Patty bolted towards the mirror, taking her entire Jenga tower down in the process. Liz dropped her book, stretched, and sauntered over.

When the glow finally faded, the girls flinched at the sudden materialization of an abnormally strung out Kid.

"Bah!" Kid grasped the frame by both sides. His usually collected visage was wild with urgency. "Ladies, we have a situation," he said. "There's been a death at Soul's childhood home, and he is currently under suspicion. Fortunately, deathscythes fall under Shibusen jurisdiction and can't be questioned by local police," he added, casting a furtive glance at something offscreen. "Maka was able to stall by requesting Shibusen's presence, but we are stretched so thin…"

Upon hearing Soul's name, Liz covered her mouth in shock. Patty was also taken aback by the news, but she was always the sister who could bury bad news beneath a happy smile and wide bambi eyes. Patty didn't need any additional information to know what to do. "On it, Kiddo!" She said with a salute. "So when do we head out?"

"Immediately. And please, give Soul my sincerest condolences." Kid sighed and touched his fingertips to the glass in a broken gesture of comfort and loss before his image disappeared, leaving the sisters in the Death Room, comfortably unaware of the horrors and heartbreak waiting for them.

With a little help from foes-turned-friends Free and Eruka, the Thompson sisters found themselves magically dumped 2,482 miles east. Liz landed on her ass, in the mud no less, while Patty touched down on her feet. Even brief meister training had its perks. They didn't have time to change into anything more appropriate than Liz's casual capris, Patty's jean shorts, and their tight tops, so the two sisters had no choice but to shiver in their midriff-baring shirts and trudge forward.

The house's dark silhouette loomed against a gunmetal sky. Surrounding its vast property was a thick layer of leafless forest, and above the treeline Liz could see the lonely chimney of another house cutting into the air. Down the long, winding driveway, police cars idled with red and blue lights flashing through the dusk. If there was an ambulance, it was gone now. Liz and Patty were not strangers to mansions or ornate architecture, but something about the unforgiving cold and gloom made the property appear particularly haunting. The house and its garden had all the trappings of beauty, but death hung on every flower petal and dirtied every brick with its foul taint.

A sickly prickling sensation crawled up Liz's arms, and she shuffled her bag of clothing and toiletries underneath one arm so she could snatch Patty's wrist. She didn't know why, but she needed to keep her sister close.

They were three quarters of the way down the drive when a frowning policewoman strode out of the house to meet them. With her other arm, Liz instinctively clutched her bag to her torso. Patty, too, tensed. They had always been unnerved by police.

The feature that stood out most to Liz was the depth of the policewoman's frown lines. Had this lady ever smiled in her life? Everything else about her, from the tightness of her coiled bun to the severity of her small mouth, suggested an unwillingness to yield to anyone, let alone two muddy blondes.

"It's about time you arrived," the officer said, briskly shaking both of their hands. Her voice was husky yet firm, just like her strong grip. "I'm Sergeant Mary Bollero, the officer in charge of this investigation. Now that Shibusen has _deigned_ to send someone to question _your_ deathscythe, my work can finally continue. The family is inside. Shall I show you the scene?"

Without further prompting, Bollero turned to her right and stomped through the grass towards the left wing of the house. Liz and Patty followed obediently behind her. A sick feeling of deja vu swept over Liz and she wished this responsibility could fall on someone else's shoulders.

The grass was thoroughly trampled all along the side of the house. Once they rounded the corner, the sisters saw the stone bricks stained dark crimson. The paramedics had removed the body, but they hadn't managed to clean up all the blood. Nearby the bloodstains, a patch of African violets had been utterly flattened.

"Paramedics removed the body ninety minutes ago," Bollero informed them. "We'll have autopsy results soon enough, but we were able to make some inferences. The death occurred on the roof, which we've closed off. The victim had substantial head trauma from hitting the ground, and possibly a gunshot wound to the head as well. Our running theory is that he shot himself on the roof and then toppled himself over the side. Usually people choose to jump or pull the trigger, not _both._ A bit overkill for a suicide, in my opinion."

They hadn't even seen the corpse and Liz already felt a little woozy. "Yeah, sure."

"What happened to those?" Patty asked, pointing at the crushed African violets.

Bollero clicked her tongue. "The deathscythe was the first to reach the body. Knelt on the ground there and tried resuscitating the victim, but it was no use. The victim's soul was gone. Whether it was the bullet to the head or hitting the ground that did it, Wes Evans was too far gone to be saved."

Liz abruptly turned around and began to bite her nails, unwilling to envision that scene. She had already developed a toxic dislike of this policewoman. The body, the victim, the deathscythe-it was like those involved in this tragedy were _things_ instead of people, and that made any named reference that crossed her lips feel sarcastic and cold. It was the kind of language nuance only a demon weapon would be sensitive to, because when your identity was wrapped up in being someone else's instrument of violence and destruction, you took your humanity seriously.

As Bollero walked around to the front of the house, Patty silently mouthed a few choice words behind her back.

They followed the policewoman back to the front of the house and onto the porch. Before reaching for the door, Bollero turned towards the sisters. She surveyed them with curiosity before the line of her mouth went hard.

"I'm going to be straight with you," she said. "You're not here to be little Nancy Drews. You're not here to play CSI. We contacted you because no one knows where the victim's younger brother was during the murder or how he made it to the body so quickly, and _I'm_ not allowed to question him. Once your precious deathscythe has a solid alibi, I expect to continue my investigation without any interference."

Bollero's tone of finality and indifference told Liz and Patty all they needed to know. They weren't there to work side-by-side with the police, but to quietly remove a sticky legal hurdle that happened to involve a powerful deathscythe. The enlightening autopsy report Bollero kept referring to wasn't going to be shared; the sisters weren't going to get any information from the police. No fingerprints, no photographs, no nothing. They were on their own.

The house appeared foreboding when Liz and Patty walked down the driveway, but their dread increased tenfold when they got inside. Like the garden, the place was seemingly a very pretty and well kept home. The walls were adorned with tasteful paintings of men on horseback, sweeping landscapes, and coy shepherdesses surrounded by rosy-cheeked piglets. A pair of small tables against the hallway walls supported vases of fresh flowers with deep red and orange colored petals. A large cupboard displayed rows upon rows of delicate china and teacups, though it looked like the contents of that formidable cabinet hadn't been opened in ages.

The Evanses wealth wasn't flamboyant. It was oppressive. It oozed out of the drapes, the Turkish carpets, the flowers. Every accent piece was specifically chosen and positioned to show off the family's pedigree for maximum effect, causing any visitor to feel scrappy and dull in comparison. Patty's large eyes darted around the room, likely from the sensory overload. Their choices were either to look at the decor or at the grieving family. When they finally came face-to-face with the Evanses, Liz didn't blame Patty for avoiding the latter.

There were eight of them in all including Maka, which meant there were seven grim, apathetic faces staring at Liz and Patty when they finally arrived.

Bollero was brief in her introductions.

First was Annette Veneer-Evans and August Evans, Soul and Wes' aunt and uncle. The long-haired August sat in a chair and stared listlessly into a glass of whiskey while Annette paced behind him with a cigarette in hand. They would have reminded Liz of a reclining lion and a prowling lioness had Annette's skin not been so botoxed that she appeared almost serpentine.

Next was their young daughter Mary-Catherine ("No, it's _Merricat,_ " she said in protest), who was fiddling with her cell phone, and their teenaged son, Seth, who looked as if he smelled something awful. They were both squeezed into a single armchair, with Merricat perched on the arm and Seth glowering in the center.

Last were Soul and Wes' parents, retired orchestral musicians Victor and Cressida Evans, who were viciously clinging to each other. Victor's most definitive feature was his broom mustache and box-like jowls. His wife Cressida was a slight woman, with black, wavy hair gathered in an alligator clip, her dark face tinged red and raw from weeping. When he realized that the Thompson sisters were there, Victor looked up at them with a look of sardonic contempt.

Their friends were found in the center of the family tableau, and they were the most chilling sight of all. Soul and Maka sat on opposite ends of a small couch, holding hands at literally arms length while they avoided meeting eyes. Maka looked the better of two; her eyes were puffy and her cheeks pink from dried tears, but she brightened when she saw the sisters arrive and gave them a small wave. Soul simply stared at the floor with a tight jaw, as if he were willing himself to disappear.

Aside from buckets of money, another thing the Evans family had that the Thompsons didn't was eerily consistent genetics. Every single Evans man had the same sleepy eyes, the same thick white locks, the same lanky build. The main differences were the varying effects of age and their variously coiffed/wild hairstyles. Liz wondered what went wrong in order for Soul to be the only Evans to manifest the weapon gene, because surely an ability like that doesn't happen by accident.

Annette, Soul's aunt, snuffed her cigarette in a dish and greeted the girls once she realized that no one else in the family would.

"You're from Shibusen, aren't you?" Annette spoke airily and extended a thin, pale arm. When Liz shook it, she noticed that the woman was trembling. Patty noticed this too; she was uncharacteristically gentle as she shook Annette's white hand. "Please," she said with a small gesture towards the room. "Sit down and make yourself comfortable."

The offer didn't make any sense. No chair in the grand room looked fit for sitting, and the sisters fidgeted awkwardly, not sure what to do. Above the couch where Maka and Soul sat apart was a large mirror mounted on the wall. Through its reflection, Liz saw how alien she and her sister were amongst all this finery, like two strays who had wandered inside to get out of the rain.

Soul's father was less civil. "This is who Shibusen sent?" Victor said in a dry, scathing voice. Though he continued to comfort and cradle his wife against his chest, Liz could see that he was quietly seething. "We've been waiting for over an hour! For teenagers! In _belly shirts!_ "

"We came from all the way in Nevada on short notice," Liz explained without humor. "Back home, belly shirts are an occupational hazard." She was tempted to add that they weren't teenagers, but bit her tongue. Nodding to Patty, Liz procured her Shibusen identification card while her sister followed suite. Apart from her age and weapon status, the cards displayed the new titles Kid had bestowed upon his weapons shortly after the Battle on the Moon.

 _Elizabeth Thompson- The Right Hand of Death_

 _Patricia Thompson - The Left Hand of Death_

In truth, Kid was rarely consistent with which sister he wielded in which hand, but that didn't make the new titles any less impressive and intimidating.

Holding both cards in one of his long-fingered hands, Victor appraised the ID cards with a frown. He kept looking between the cards and the two young blondes before him as if he couldn't believe they were the same people.

"How do I know these are valid?" he asked.

"Don't you see the skull?" Patty asked with sugary sweetness.

Appeased, Victor handed back the cards. "So I suppose you two will be working with the police. I don't want you snooping around my home without a search warrant, or questioning us without a lawyer present."

Bollero stepped forward. "Their only concern is confirming your son's whereabouts. They will be gone shortly."

" _My son's whereabouts?_ Your people were the ones who wrapped him up and wheeled him away without telling us," Victor said. Clumsily shoving his wife to the side, he pointed a finger at Liz and Patty, and then at the police woman. "When are you releasing the body? Will you tell us anything about how he died? I don't believe for a single second that Wes would hurt himself, and I won't be kept in the dark!"

Everyone in the room stiffened at exactly the same time. "I meant your other son," Bollero said quietly.

The map of fury Victor had been wearing so proudly vanished, and his wife sighed. "Oh, Vic."

Soul stood up and dropped Maka's hand. "I'm going upstairs," he mumbled. His shirt sleeves, Liz noticed with churning horror, were stained with blotches of murky red-souvenirs from his fruitless attempts to save his elder brother's life. Maka popped up from the couch, and after shooting a short panicked look towards Liz and Patty, she followed Soul out of the room.

"We oughtta follow them," Liz whispered to her sister. "The last thing I want is to get lost in this place figuring out where they're shacked up. And I definitely don't want to be alone with these people."

"Roger, roger," Patty replied. They sidestepped out of the room unnoticed while the family devolved into harsh whispers and accusations. When the sisters had finally cleared the threshold and were free to chase after their friends, they heard the disembodied voices of the Evans family echo through the halls.

"You can't blame me for this Cress, he wanted nothing to do with us for eight years!"

"Well that was a dramatic exit. Heh, maybe he's channeling Wes' spirit."

"That was uncalled for, young man-"

"Daddy, can I tell the police lady about the Blight Ghost _now?_ "

"Shhh, Merricat! She isn't interested in your little stories-"

"Victor, don't you realize he's _never_ going to come back again after this? We're going to lose everything by the end of this weekend. What are we going to do?"

Soul was essentially pulling his meister as he stomped up a wide staircase without a single glance behind him. Liz trailed after them, pausing only to keep Patty on task when she stopped to stare out a dark window. Once upstairs, Soul darted inside a room.

The bedroom they ended up in was bigger than any Liz or Patty ever had slept in. It contained a four poster bed, a large cabinet with a flat-screen television, and a walk-in closet deep enough for Patty to do a full cartwheel. Other than these main pieces of furniture and the couple's small amount of unpacked things, the room was bare.

"This was Soul's room when he was growing up," Maka said, gesturing like a tour guide. She was trying to eat up the silence and soothe the tension, only to freeze at the sound of a sharp squeak. One of the floorboards was warped upward, and even the slightest pressure caused the whole floor to squeal. "It's an old house," Maka added with haste. "The Evans family homestead for seventy years, apparently. Both Mr. Evans and August grew up here too, though I forget who slept in this room…" She looked to her weapon for details.

"'Scuse me," Soul mumbled under his breath. He bolted into the adjoining bathroom. The door slammed behind him, leaving the girls alone. When Maka sat on the bed, the sisters looked for an additional chair, and when they found none Liz leaned against the wall and Patty sat on top of the rickety spot in the floorboards, which squeaked beneath her weight.

"So how are you guys holding up?" Patty whispered from down below. "Has Soul, you know, has he…" She made her right hand into a claw and drew a streaking motion from her eyes to her chin.

Maka took a moment to understand. "What? Cried? Oh, no." The meister then rubbed her eyes. She looked absolutely exhausted. "I wish he did. A few tears would be so much easier to deal with than the constant stonewalling. These last few hours have been a nightmare."

A few hours was not enough time to process a death-a _sibling's_ death. It was no wonder that the family hadn't quite fallen over the precipice of grief yet; a world without Wes was too new to them to feel real.

While they waited for Soul to reappear, Liz felt as though her guts were coiling themselves in an unending, painful loop.

Liz lived for Patty, and she had always been comfortable enough in her role as older sister, mother, and protector to accept that she would die for her, too. But since Kid was in the picture and Liz didn't plan on dying before her time anyway, she hadn't truly envisioned what would happen after such a sacrifice. Now she was witnessing that dark hypothetical timeline play out for one of their best friends in horrid detail.

Soul didn't have a brother anymore. Who was looking out for him now? Who was sucker-punching bullies and making sure he got home safe? It was a silly line of thought, considering that Soul was the Last Deathscythe and perfectly capable of fighting his own battles, but it struck the same nerve exposed by parental abandonment and rubbed raw from a lifetime of close-calls.

The bathroom door flew open, and Soul moved back into the main bedroom like a slow-moving rain cloud. His face was red and clammy, as if he had splashed himself with cold water. Soul lowered himself next to Maka on the bed, the absolute portrait of a man emotionally running on empty.

They all stared at one another. This was supposed to be the part where Liz and Patty took the lead, but neither really knew where to start. "Well I guess we're only here to make sure you guys aren't prime suspects," Liz said, internally chastising herself for simply repeating the obvious. Thinking back to Bollero, she added, "I mean, we aren't detectives. This is like a formality. And you don't have to worry about us blabbing to the police if your alibi is awkward or weird. Like making out in a closet."

"Or doing drugs," Patty said, trying to be helpful.

Cringing, Liz elbowed her sister in the upper arm. "Or anything too embarrassing for the police to hear," she clarified. "So, Soul, what were you up to at, um…" Liz shot Maka a questioning look.

"Seven thirty," Maka supplied.

"Right, seven thirty. Where were you and what were you doing at seven thirty?"

Soul responded with a shrug at first, but when he saw the three girls continue to stare at him, he grumbled, "I was hanging out in the upstairs study, listening to music. When I heard the gunshot, I looked out the window and I saw-" Soul stopped short and swallowed thickly. "I hardly remember what happened next. I just bolted, leapt through the window, and landed in some flowers. I know it sounds weird but that was the fastest way to get to him. I didn't even think, I just acted."

"It doesn't sound weird," Liz said. Demon weapons were built from tougher stuff than normal people. If she saw Patty sprawled on the ground, she would have leapt out the window, too.

"Did you see Wes' soul? You were the first person at the body."

"No. I didn't even look."

Coming from the self-proclaimed Soul Eater, this seemed unlikely. Human souls tended to stick around for a few minutes before floating into the sky and eventually dissolving as their essences crossed over to wherever death lead them-unless they were physically collected or consumed.

"Listen," Liz said. "Patty and I have been messed around by cops before. What they're looking for here is an alibi. Simply telling us where you were doesn't mean anything if there's no way to prove you're telling the truth."

"Telling the truth?" Soul asked, taken aback. "You think I would lie about this?"

"Officer Bollero told us no one saw you at all right before the murder, and I'm not sure they'll understand the whole window thing. And to be honest, the fact that Wes' soul is unaccounted for doesn't look good for you either. If you just-"

" _You think I ate my brother's soul?"_ Soul shot her a scathing look scarily reminiscent of his father. "Fuck this, andfuck _you_. I don't care whether anyone believes me. I was alone, listening to music. That's the truth. That's the story I'm sticking to."

There was no brighter red flag that screamed "Hey, I am lying" than "That's the story I'm sticking to," and all three girls knew it instantly. Soul was never as good at bullshitting as he thought he was, and it was downright concerning-no, _incriminating-_ that he was desperate enough to try.

What reason did Soul have to keep his whereabouts a secret? The first and least optimistic explanation was that he did kill Wes and he was trying to conceal that fact, but that didn't jive with who Soul was. It was no secret that the deathscythe was a gold medalist in the loyalty olympics. He didn't harm people who were close to him-he protected them with his own flesh and bone. Another possible explanation was that Soul knew who killed Wes and was covering for them. Given the loyalty complex, this seemed more likely, but who in the world did Soul care so much for that he was willing to cover up the murder of his own brother?

Liz's eye slid towards Maka for a single moment before she shook her head. While hurting a loved one was out of character for Soul, it was literal heresy for Maka. Plus if she was in on it, she wouldn't be so eager to make Soul talk. And there was the matter of Maka's soul perception, which would make getting away with murder so much easier for her and so much harder for….

"Hey!" Liz said, turning to Maka. "You have the most powerful soul perception at Shibusen. Did you sense anything weird? Was Wes' soul giving you any vibes?"

Maka's ears turned beet red, and she exchanged an uncomfortable glance with Soul. _Oh,_ Liz thought. _They had already talked this over._ "I don't remember," Maka admitted. "When it happened I was downstairs. Mr. and Mrs. Evans were teaching me to play piano, and it absorbed all of my attention."

Soul snorted. "Scales aren't that hard," he drawled.

"I'm not a human radar!" Maka snapped. Her voice was a mixture of hurt and anger. "You can't seriously expect me to use soul perception to spy on people at every waking hour of the day!"

"It's just weird that of all the times you turn it off-"

"At least I can tell them where I was and what I was doing!" Soul rose from his chair and walked to the window as if he were trying to escape Maka's words. "The only reason Liz and Patty are even here is because you refuse to tell the truth to the police-you are _implicating yourself_ in Wes' death. Don't you realize how serious that is?"

"That's rich, my brother is dead but _I'm_ the one who doesn't grasp the seriousness of the situation." Soul stared outside the window in a moment of painful listlessness, and his shoulders sagged beneath the weight of his grief.

Maka joined him at the window and put her hands on his shoulders. She hugged him, and they finally saw Soul let down his guard as he returned the embrace. Meanwhile, Liz glanced towards the door, wondering if this was the time to peace out before they imposed any longer on the grieving couple.

"What was Wes like?" Patty asked, curious. Liz blinked, horrified at herself for not asking that question sooner. They knew nothing about Wes. They had been talking about this abstract event that happened three hours ago, but they hadn't bothered to investigate Wes as a human being. Soul, too, was surprised to hear Patty ask him something so candid. Maka stepped away to give her weapon space as he searched for an answer.

"He was…" He audibly swallowed to smooth out the husk of his voice. "A talented violinist, a musical genius, and the family pride. Obviously that also made him a careless, entitled dick who expected the world to be handed to him whenever he asked for it-and believe me, Wes asked for it every chance he got. He thrived on attention, got off on being pampered. Wes was also a meddler. Couldn't keep his nose out of your business, always thought he had the solutions to all your problems, and wouldn't fucking leave you alone until you heard him out."

Soul slowly turned back towards the sisters, and Liz instinctively trained her eyes to the ground to avoid seeing his pain firsthand. "But he never gave up on people. Never gave up on me, and I spent years trying to push him away. I was gone for eight years, and he hugged me like I never left. I can't think of a single reason why anyone would want to kill him. Wes was the best of us, and we are all worse off without him."


	2. Chapter 2

Getting up the next morning was a slow, excruciating process-caused in part by the stiff hotel mattress, the whirlwind activity of the night before, and her older sister's horrible habit of tossing and turning whenever she went to sleep stressed.

Patty was the baby of the family, and like an actual baby, she needed her frickin' sleep.

She rolled over on her belly and shuffled to the edge of the bed. Liz was already up, scrolling on her laptop on the other side of the room with knitted eyebrows. Curious to see what had gotten Liz so absorbed and worried, Patty ruffled her hair until it was out of her eyes and slunk off the bed.

After lumbering to Liz, Patty draped herself over her sister's shoulder. "Whatcha doing?"

"Some research," Liz said, clicking her mouse. The browser tab switched to a high resolution image of a musician with a shock of white hair and a deep brown violin perched on his shoulder. His eyes were closed, and a euphoric smile with a hint of arrogance played on his face. Patty was stunned how much the man looked like Soul, only somehow even hotter.

"That's our vic?" Patty asked.

"Yeah. Soul's older brother. He never mentioned a brother to you, did he?" 

"Never. I dunno if I even remember him leaving DC to visit him."

"Me neither." Liz tapped her fingers on the side of her laptop before continuing. "Especially a brother this famous. According to his Wikipedia page, Wes is big-shot violinist. He beat out his own cousin for a Grammy last year. Hear that? This guy has won _Grammys._ There's not a lot about his personal life, though." She paused. "You don't think Soul would actually hurt his brother, do you?"

"Nope, cuz if he was the murderer, he would have just _stabbed_ Wes. Duh." It seemed pretty obvious that while the missing soul was worrisome, this wasn't a Shibusen job. With the notable exceptions of the Thompson sisters, weapons didn't use other weapons to do their killing for them.

No one really pegged Patty as a critical thinker, or observant, or independent, which was a fucking shame because she was all these things when she wanted to be. Her mind hadn't stopped racing since they landed in Jersey. She had already come up with a dozen theories explaining the murder, ranging from Wes dying in a struggle with sixteen murderous ninjas to aliens dropping out of the sky to deliver him a swift death. The only explanations Patty never entertained was that Wes killed himself or that Soul killed his brother because they were far too boring.

It had been a long time since a mission had given Patty that sweet rush of adrenaline. With Kid, she and Liz had brought down plenty of serial killers, rapists, cannibals, and general evil, but they had never solved a _murder._

They could though, her and Liz, the dream team unchained once more. When they had arrived on the Evans front lawn the day before, the bitter cold of the East coast and the soggy feeling in her boots reminded Patty of the days when it was just the two of them in Brooklyn, two guns against the world. She hadn't realized how much she missed that freedom and thrill.

A curious thought then occurred to Patty. "Hey sis, what kind of gun was it that shot him? Has it been found?"

"No idea," Liz said. She closed her laptop and stood. "That bitch gave us nothing." Liz didn't need to explain who 'that bitch' referred to.

Once they finished eating some free bagels and cereal in the hotel lobby, Liz and Patty were picked up outside the building by August Evans, Soul's uncle. They didn't have anyone to transport them to and from the hotel, and Liz insisted that staying at the Evans home was too intrusive. Patty thought intruding was what they were supposed to do, but she kept that to herself.

August Evans picked up the sisters in a black Bentley Continental, and Patty blinked with surprise when he got out and opened the back door for them like they were the duchesses of England or something. In the whirlwind of yesterday's introductions and questions, she hadn't gotten a close look at the man. His green sweater layered over a pair of plain slacks was punctuated by the wildness of his shoulder-length white hair and his odd aviator eyeglasses. The crows feet sprouting from the outer corners of his murky red eyes were so long that they nearly intersected with his smile lines.

The man was courteous and smiling, yet the heaviness of his movements and the dark crescent moons sagging beneath August's eyes told a different story. There was a hurt festering beneath that smile and an exhaustion doubtlessly caused by sitting up all night with inconsolable family members who needed a strong shoulder to cry on.

The sisters slid into the car, Patty on the left side and Liz on the right. Patty swiveled in the seats, amused by the squeaking leather. Not only was this car brand-spankin' new, but its upholstery and windows were so pristine that she sure no one had ever sat in this backseat before. It was a good thing, Patty decided, that she was there to break it all in.

The only sign that the car had ever been used was a pile of small slips of paper bound together with twine and thrust into the pocket in the back of the passenger seat. Patty couldn't help herself. She picked up the bundle and turned it over in her hands. They were a series of notes written in the same cursive script. The only one she could read without untying the string was on top.

 _You might find a surprise behind the curtains_

 _\- Wes_

Wes' signature included the most complex looking 'W' that Patty had ever laid eyes on. How many loops could one letter have?

"What's this?" Patty asked.

August clipped in his seat belt. "We were going to have a, er, scavenger hunt Saturday night," he explained. "Wes was in charge of writing the clues. I removed them after...everything. The last thing our family needs are mementos of what could have been."

That statement made Liz sigh and frown. Her curiosity sated, Patty put the bundle back in the seat pocket and thought of it no more.

They drove silently for several minutes before her older sister spoke up. "I don't mean to put you on the spot here, but what was going on when the murder happened?" Liz asked. "Soul and Maka weren't that forthcoming, you know?"

In the driver's seat, August dipped his head to the left. "Of course they weren't," he agreed. "We are all shell-shocked. I'm sorry to say that I'm the last person who can describe what happened. When albinism runs so strongly in your family, you're prone to a few medical conditions. I got the lot of them-the vision issues, easily bruised skin, increased infections-so I'm on a regimen of medication that puts me right to sleep. My family was meant to drive to the airport today for a red eye flight, so I turned in early. I had no idea anything happened last night until Annette woke me up after the police came."

"Medical troubles. Convenient," Patty muttered, smudging her fingerprints on the window. "Did anyone, like, watch you sleep?"

August sighed warily. "Yes, actually. My wife administered my medication and spent the evening in our room, next to me. You can ask her for the finer details. We're very eager to cooperate with-who are you two?"

Liz was shaking her head, signalling Patty to just drop the subject and let it go, but Patty was already on a roll and couldn't halt her momentum now. "Death's weapons."

When neither sister offered more explanation than that, August nodded in surrender. "Of course. We are obviously more than happy to cooperate with Death."

A few moments of quiet passed and silence threatened to sweep over the car, but Patty refused to let it take hold. "So do you know _why_ somebody killed Wes? Does he have any enem-Ow!" Liz thumped Patty on the side of her arm, eyes wide and frantic. She didn't understand. Wasn't this what they were supposed to do?

"It's alright," August said. At a red light, he lifted a hand off the steering wheel to rub the inner corners of his eyes. In the rear view mirror, Patty could see that his naturally red irises were blotchy with grief. "Since the police already asked me the same question, I'll give you the same answer. Wes was easy to love and easy to hate. That's the reality for the young and talented; people see your accomplishments and feel the need to make you feel just as disappointed and unfulfilled as they do." August spoke of Wes with reverence and warmth, as if this were a phenomenon he too had experienced and conquered. "Dealing with that amount of envy could have an adverse affect on someone, but Wes hardly even noticed. It was all just rain off a duck's back for him."

"Did the family at least like him a little bit?"

"Of course! We all adored him. A success for Wes was a success for all of us."

"Even when he won that Grammy? I thought he beat one of his cousins for the same prize."

August paused before responding with a knowing chuckle. "You're talking about Nick, my eldest. You didn't meet him; he didn't come to Thanksgiving this year. I'll admit he's still sore from that snub." He shrugged. "As upset as he is, Nick wouldn't actually hurt Wes over a lost Grammy. We have a little more family unity than that."

Patty found August to be the exact opposite of helpful. Sure, he was answering her questions without fail or hesitation, but there was nothing he said _juicy_ enough to be a murder motive. She hated to admit it, but a Grammy wasn't worth killing for. Maybe the police were right and Wes did turn the gun on himself.

"Isn't there anything that Wes ever felt bad about?" Patty asked. "Anything in his life that wasn't super perfect?"

In the rearview mirror, Patty saw August purse his lips together, deep in thought. "I think the only time I ever saw Wes wounded was when Soul cut off all communication with the family. He was very hurt by that. But he had always hoped that Soul would come back to us one day. I'm glad he was at least able to see that dream come true."

The New Jersey town thinned out. Their car entered a heavily wooded area occupied by the occasional mansion and farmhouse, and August turned the radio up to a very loud and repetitive Christian rock station. Masked by ambient guitar solos and guttural calls to prayer, Liz cast a glance towards their driver and whispered to her sister.

"Patty, are you going to act like this with everyone?"

Patty blinked. "Like what?"

Liz's knitted eyebrows and pursed lips were hard to interpret, but her wavelength wasn't. Since they were young, Liz's soul became an adamantine shield bent on protecting those she loved. Usually that extended to only Patty and Kid, but now, Patty realized with increasing indignation, it had grown in size to shelter someone else.

"I just want to make sure you know that we are here to take care of our _own_ , okay?" Liz finally said. "Not get mixed up in the actual murder stuff."

"Someone has to solve the murder, and we can't do that if we don't get dirt on the vic," Patty whispered. She set her jaw; Liz was never this dismissive with her. "Soul needs to know who killed his older brother. I'd wanna know, if it were me."

It was a cheap shot, but it worked. Liz scowled and turned away. The sisters looked out their opposite windows, desperately trying to ignore the soft link between their soul wavelengths that always hummed when they were near each other.

They drove for a long time, quietly passing the gates of other large mansions and winding through the wooded neighborhood, when a sudden gap in the treeline caught Patty's eye. She pressed her nose to the glass and an opaque cloud of condensation grew with every fixated breath.

An eerie husk of a home was sat in the belly of a shallow valley, defiantly corrupting the neighborhood with its untamed gardens and shattered windows. Patty didn't know much about architecture and she couldn't name the house's era, but judging by its wraparound porch, sash windows, and teardrop archways, the house was _straight up old_ , older perhaps than the Evans mansion and Gallows Manor put together. Its shingles were stained brown with frequent rain, and a large rash of ivy consumed its front porch and outer walls. A chimney with black streaks burned into the bricks jutted out on the left side of the house. Only two windows in the second story were unbroken, and they stared forward like empty eyes.

Something about the house was mesmerizing. She kept her eyes on it long after they passed its address, tracking its silhouette through the forests and against the mid-morning sky. When August finally parked their car and opened the door for the sisters to exit, Patty immediately rushed out of the vehicle so she could seek its location.

"Who lives there?" Patty asked, pointing at the cracked chimney and roof just visible above the trees.

August glanced to his left and stopped. He stared up at the chimney for a long moment and then released a heavy sigh before forcing a smile back onto his face. "Oh, no one. Not anymore."

It had rained overnight, and the Evans property smelt earthy and fresh. Patty couldn't help but glance at the corner of the right side of the house, where Bollero had shown them the trampled mud and flowerbeds where Wes' body was found.

There was no one to welcome them when they entered the house, so the responsibility fell on August's shoulders. "Wait here," he said before leaving down the hall. His soft footsteps echoed as he walked down the hall and rounded a corner, out of sight. August seemed to believe letting the Thompsons roam the house unaccompanied was a bad idea, or at least against his brother's wishes, but he had no issue leaving them alone while he looked for a different babysitter.

That was his mistake.

"Let's ditch," Patty said quietly. For some reason, speaking at a whisper felt necessary in the cavernous house. "They're never going to leave us alone. We don't need no frickin' escort." It felt natural and right to rail against authority, like Patty was scratching a pulsing itch on the ball of her foot.

Liz chewed her lip and surveyed the place, and Patty felt her heart hang as she waited for her sister's judgement. "I dunno," Liz said. "We should just go see Soul and get him to finally talk. Who knows where he is in this huge place."

"I know! You can talk to Soul. I'm gonna take a look around-"

" _Patty!"_

Giggling to herself, Patty bolted up the stairs and down the hall in the opposite direction of Soul's bedroom. The hall curved gently to the right before revealing a whole other wing of the house. While amply decorated, the air tasted stale, and the pictures and cabinets lining the hall and filling the rooms were covered by milky finish of dust. The Evans family house was too large, even for a hoity toity family like them.

There was one portrait that had been recently wiped clean. It was faded collage of sepia photographs, mostly starring two identical white-blondish boys grinning at the camera in various settings-in front of the house, by the shooting range, at an orchestra concert. Judging by tucked in button down shirts and bellbottom pants, these photos were taken decades ago (Twenty years? Thirty?). One candid photo captured one of the blondish boys, probably college age at this point, chatting up some pretty redhead leaning over a short fence covered in ivy and thistle. Another showed the brothers in the lush Evans garden, sweaty from work and annoyed at the cameraman while a familiar slanted chimney rose above the tree canopy in the distance.

It interested Patty for a few moments, but the mere tingle of recognition wasn't enough to keep her attention for long. She skipped down the hall, pushing open doors with her foot and peeking inside, when she finally found what she was looking for.

A narrow spiral staircase was hidden away in one forgotten room. Unlike everywhere else in this wing of the house, it was clear that people had tramped through here and searched the premises. Bright yellow caution tape crisscrossed the stairwell entrance, a sure sign that this place was both off-limits and vitally important.

It was time to take a look at the roof where Wes was killed.

Before Patty maneuvered over the caution tape, a hand gripped her by the arm. Turning around, she saw that it was Liz.

"Come on Patty, this isn't a good idea," Liz said

She whirled on her older sister immediately. "But we have to! The cops might have picked the place clean already, but we can't wait for them to tell us important stuff, which will be _never_. Come on sis, let's just take a quick look."

Liz shot her sister an amused, yet withering look. "I meant it's not a good idea for you to run around the house by yourself, without backup. Someone should stick around down here to keep watch, just in case someone comes looking for us."

Instantly, Patty felt dumb and petty for questioning her sister. She cleared her throat and allowed her smile to consume her face. "Good point sis. But, if I don't come back in a few minutes," she whispered with faux grimness. "Expect the _worst_."

Her sister grinned and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, same here. Now go snoop!"

With one last grin, Patty hopped over the caution tape and began to climb the spiral staircase. The passage was so narrow Patty couldn't comfortably extend her arms to each side. Given the cramped space, it was tough for her to gauge the height or distance that she climbed. She could only count the heavy footfalls of her black boots on every creaking step.

At the top of the claustrophobic stairwell, Patty discovered a wooden door with a lock that bolted shut on the inside. Confident that no one was following her up the stairs (she would have heard them) or waiting for her on the roof (how could they get up when the door was locked from the inside?), Patty slid the bolt back and exited the stairs. She stepped onto a patio lined with tile and surrounded by railing and outcroppings of the brick wall. Portions of the roof jutted upwards, and on the other side of the house's peak sat a decorative chimney.

The area on the roof had a couple deck chairs, and potted plants were evenly arranged against the rail-evidence that the terrace was, disappointingly, a place to socialize, not a means for climbing the actual roof. Whatever happened to Wes occurred on that landing, and considering the small terrace's size and seclusion, it was the perfect location to make a quick kill and escape.

Patty walked away from the door and scanned the stone railing. It was a good four and a half feet tall, so it was unlikely Wes toppled over the side by accident. But there was something else that was off, something that Patty would never have noticed had she not lived with Kid for so many years.

Five plants in uniform, gleaming ceramic pots were arranged along the rail, one pot for every five posts. But the pattern was _wrong._ One pot was slightly off center from its assigned post and splattered with dirt. Someone had moved it, perhaps even pushed it over.

It took only four large steps of Patty's clunky boots to make it to the offending pot, and she stood on her tiptoes to see over the railing. Sure enough, the blood stained stones and crushed African violets Officer Bollero showed Patty and Liz the night before were directly below.

The pot. The flowers. The railing. Wes was standing near the pot, near the railing, perhaps even leaning against it, when he was shot. While the killer struggled to maneuver Wes' body over the roof, the pot fell over and spilled dirt on the patio, only to be put back later. They then chucked the gun over too to sell the suicide. The police could have done it, but that felt counterintuitive considering that police were supposed to, um, _solve_ the goddamn crime instead of cover up the evidence. If all that was true, the murderer put the pot right side up again without making sure it was in its proper place.

Standing near the rail, Patty held up an invisible gun towards the skyline, aiming at the sun lightly shining behind a thick layer of clouds. No one had told them what kind of gun Wes was killed with, but no matter what make or model, Wes could not have been shot at such a close range without getting blood all over the killer. Unless the killer ditched their clothes in the ten seconds they had before the family poured out of the house, they must have shot Wes at some distance. That only left the back corner of the balcony right behind the stairwell door, where the killer may have been lying in wait for Wes to appear.

Patty's index finger-the nose of her imaginary gun-traced the horizon until it landed on a lone chimney with black, uneven stripes. The house, the one that had fascinated her before, was clearly visible from the spot where Wes tumbled over the railing and fell to his death. Patty felt a low, yet persistent tug in its direction. The instinct to drop everything and _go there_ was almost enough to convince her to step on the rail, whip her leg over the side and-

She shook her head furiously, like a dog shaking off water. There wasn't anything left to find here. It was time to go. As she left and shut the roof door behind her, it occurred to Patty that Wes' soul might have separated from his body on the roof instead of in the garden. Perhaps that was why no one saw it disappear into the ether.

Patty quietly tiptoed down the staircase, and when the spiral finally unwound and Patty reappeared on the third floor, Liz was nowhere to be found. Patty's heart thudded with an increasing urgency as she spun around, searching for any sign of where her sister had disappeared to. _Expect the worst if I don't come back_ -that was supposed to be a _joke_. There was nothing funny about this, nothing at all. Patty reached her soul wavelength out as far as she could, spiraling through the hallway and clawing at the walls, but unlike a true meister her wavelength could only be stretched a few feet from her body.

Murder, Patty could handle. Ghosts and creepy forests, easy peasy. But no matter how old she became or where she was, Liz's absence chilled Patty more than a haunted house ever could.

The sounds of footsteps and shrill chatter echoed down the hall. Annette, August's wife, was heading that way. The Evanses had already said they didn't want Liz and Patty roaming the house alone, and the sisters were definitely not supposed to be poking around the roof. Patty's eyes swept across the hallway, searching for a place to hide, when she saw a small wicker wastebin lined with a clear plastic bag.

Well, it wouldn't be the dirtiest place Patty had ever hidden, or the strangest, or the most humiliating...

Annette's voice and footsteps were creeping closer, and Patty had to act. She transformed in a flash of pink light, and as her flesh dissolved and her soul became encased in metal, that light poured into the wastebin. She nestled herself in weapon form amidst excess plastic and discarded paper, leaving one eye exposed to observe Annette in the hall.

Whereas August had the look of an aging mountain lion with his weathered wrinkles and long hair, Annette was a deathly pale woman with knife-like cheekbones and skin that looked too tight to fit her own skull. Her red hair was pulled back in a severe french twist, and her curvacious body swathed in a wooly sweater and long skirt. From her vantage point in the trash can, Patty almost could only just see the smartphone adhered to her ear.

"Believe it or not, I don't pay your firm because I enjoy these chats," Annette said. "I pay you to protect my rights. And that should include from wispy blondes who somehow work for the powers that be. Just give me a straight answer. Does telling Death's handmaidens to get lost qualify as obstruction of justice?" Annette paused for a moment before mustering all the facial elasticity she could in order to scowl. "Well, _shit."_

Patty watched Annette walk towards the window and look out into the grey beyond. "My family is falling apart," she said frankly. "I just want to get us through this without getting charged for some bullshit white collar crime. I don't know, like, like-" Annette stopped speaking as she saw something out the window, and a look of mild horror swept across her face. "Like trespassing! I've told them a thousand times the house next door would cause us _nothing_ but trouble..."

Worried, Annette powerwalked out of Patty's view. The demon pistol remained in the wastebin until she heard Annette's clacking footfalls disappear.

Patty rematerialized with one boot stuck inside the waste basket. She tried to shake it off, but a sudden sound of the bookcase scraping across the wooden floor sent her into a panic, and her basket-encased foot threw off her balance and sent Patty ass-first to the ground.

Looking up, Patty discovered her sister peering around the moved bookcase, which was apparently covering up the dark entrance of a tight, hidden hallway.

"Sorry Patty," Liz said in a sheepish whisper. "I was on lookout when I found this kid spying on us. Check it out, this place has secret passageways!"

Below Liz, a young girl poked her ginger head out of the passage. True to her name, Merricat's wide, focused eyes and pointed jawline were strangely feline. In Merricat's right hand she clutched her phone, which had its red camera light on.

Once Patty kicked off the waste bin and rolled back onto her feet, she joined Liz and replaced the bookcase over the entrance, locking the three girls inside. The passage was a tight, plain hall that sharply curved to the right after about ten feet of walking and then led to a door.

"This leads straight to the east wing of the house. Right where everyone's bedrooms and studies are," Liz explained when they reached the door. "I'm thinking that the killer used it to get to and from the roof without being missed. It cuts the travel time down to almost nothing."

She pushed the door open and pulled back a green curtain billowing on the other side. The girls left the cramped hall and entered a room with a mahogany office desk, wide computer monitor, and several ceiling-high bookcases lining the walls.

"Where are we?" Patty asked.

It was a high-pitched, soft voice that answered her. "The upstairs study," Merricat said. With alarm, Patty saw that Merricat was holding onto Liz's hand like a lifeline.

"Isn't that where-"

"Soul said he was during Wes' murder?" Liz finished. "Bingo."

Things were lining up for this murder investigation, but not in Soul's favor. Kid literally dropped them in horrible Jersey to cinch an alibi for Soul, and instead they found lies and ample murderous opportunity. This mission, Patty realized with disappointment, was going to be a murder cover up instead of a murder mystery.

"Can I show you now?" Merricat asked, tugging Liz's arm. Patty felt her insides sour and tense at the sight. Merricat whipped out her expensive-ass cellphone and scrolling through the apps. "It was my job this year to take the family videos," she explained. "Because last year Seth didn't include Wes in _any_ of his footage."

Her phone was a flat, wide thing that clearly belonged on a spaceship instead of in some kid's hands. These rich non-weapon kids had literally everything, even sneaky little cameras they could store in their pockets.

Merricat pressed the play button, and the still image sprang to life. Amidst the rocky footage of a hallway inside the house, they could hear the young girl panting and giggling behind the camera as she slid behind a red armchair. Peeking around the corner, the camera caught sight of Wes, full of life and mischief, and then darted out of view.

"Look out Merricat," they heard Wes say quietly. His voice was a smooth baritone, similar to Soul but with warmer edge. "Or else _the Blight Ghost is gonna get you!_ "

The video ended abruptly as Wes poked his head over the top of the armchair and Merricat squealed in delight.

The next scene took place later in the dining room, when the sun has sunk beyond the forest and a purple sunset filtered in through the windows. The entire family was seated at a dining room table, swirling glasses of golden wine and picking at plates of grilled salmon and cobb salad. The difference between this footage and the family Patty had met the day before was striking; there was no closed body language, no forced half-hearted smiles or dull eyes hiding murky secrets and even messier emotions.

Annette, who was dressed so conservatively when Patty had spied on her, wore a body-hugging sheath dress with her long red hair cascading over her left shoulder. She sat beside August, who boasted a genuine, bright smile as he bantered with his brother and conversed with Wes, who was clearly in his element. Soul was right, the guy thrived on being the center of attention, and Annette was more than eager to fawn over him and nod in agreement.

The only two people who didn't appear natural or carefree were Cressida, who was pouring over a to-do list in the midst of dinner, and Seth, who was refusing to eat at all.

"Do you think Soul is still allergic to tree nuts?" Cressida said absently to the table. "If he is, we'll have to strike your honey pecan tart from the menu and substitute something else."

Victor raised a thick eyebrow. "Absolutely not. Cress, you _know_ that's my best dessert. If Soul told you he was vegetarian, would you suggest I throw out the turkey?" Beside him, August guffawed.

The two men shared a jovial laugh until she cleared her throat and said with unblinking seriousness, "I would if it made his throat close up and his face break into hives." Victor quieted and nodded demurely.

While Cressida's delicate face remained frozen in a frown, Annette suddenly cast her grey critical eyes towards the camera. "Merricat, put that away!"

Merricat did no such thing, and instead trained her phone on her older brother, who, like his mother, had features sharp enough to cut. "Somebody's gotta stick up his butt, huh?" she asked him. Seth pointedly ignored her, but his sister didn't take the hint. "Are you gonna come with us to find the Blight Ghost on Saturday?"

"Get that out of my face," Seth snapped to the camera. "There is no Blight Ghost. There's just Dad and Wes sneaking around in costume and jumping out from around corners. So no, I won't be going along. There are better ways to have fun than run around some old, dark house."

The camera shook from side to side, and Patty heard the young girl raggedly whisper, " _W-what?_ "

"Oh don't listen to him, Merricat." The camera jumped back to Wes, who was smiling at his young cousin from across the table. "Seth's just trying to save face. The Blight Ghost chased your brother away when he came with us a few years ago, and he doesn't want to be shown up by his brave baby sister."

"Of course you'd say that. You know a thing or two about chasing away brothers," Seth said to Wes in monotone.

Wes' face fell for a brief moment before he recovered with a light laugh and the largest shit-eating grin he could muster. "You're the funniest guy in this family, I swear to God," Wes said with a careless tone. "You should tell that one to Soul when he gets here tomorrow."

Before the film cut out again, Merricat's camera caught Seth abruptly standing up and Annette, unaware of her son's exit, slowly caressing Wes's upper arm.

The next clip was only six seconds long. Through the window in the front parlor of the house, Merricat recorded Soul dismounting his bike with an apprehensive-looking Maka in the foreground of the shot. Wes emerged from off-camera and hugged his brother with such force that he lifted Soul off the pavement. Both of their grins were a mile wide.

"Oh Vic!" Cressida marveled offscreen. She must have been looking out the window, just beyond the camera's view. "Just look at how _tall_ he is. And _she_ is so lovely."

"I don't like that he drives a motorcycle," Victor replied. On camera, Wes bent to kiss Maka's hand. "And her skirt is a tad inappropriate for November."

"Victor."

He grumbled like a misbehaved dog. "Sorry."

"Oh God, here they come! Everyone to their places! Merricat, put that away." The camera faded to black.

The next thing they saw was Soul sitting on the parlor couch with his leg transformed into a pianoscythe. He crossed it over his knee and began to play, eliciting gasps from his family seated around the room.

Well, gasps and retches. "That's gross. It's like he's making music with _bones_ and _veins_ and stuff," Seth said with his arms crossed. "How does being a scythe let you do _that?"_

"Actually he can transform his blade because he is a Deathscythe," Maka supplied. Sensing unsaid questions from the Evanses, Maka explained. "A demon weapon who consumes 99 kishin souls and one witch soul becomes a Deathscythe. The souls give the weapon increased abilities and strength."

Soul didn't even look up from his keyboard. He continued playing his adagio, too wrapped up in his song to help Maka lecture his family on Weapon Theory 101.

Somewhere else in the room, Wes laughed. "That sounds similar to the Julliard admissions process," he remarked.

Maka didn't laugh. "Soul collection is tedious and dangerous-especially the last one," she said. "Witches are some of the most powerful beings in the world, and engaging one in combat can be a death wish for most. We knew going in that it would be hard, but my parents killed a witch so my papa could become a Deathscythe, and it was my childhood dream to follow in their footsteps and create my very own."

Merricat panned the camera across the entire family, and even though Maka beamed with pride, everyone else had smiles frozen on their faces. Soul's parents fidgeted awkwardly in their seats, and even Wes couldn't muster a word.

August, who was supporting himself on the top of his wife's chair, downed his entire glass of whiskey in a single gulp. Annette busied herself with her shirt buttons. The Evanses incrementally appeared to inch away from the young couple, torn between learning more about Soul and Maka's strange lives and heading for the hills. All the while, Soul continued to play his song.

"Hmm," August finally said, clearing his throat with a guttural cough. "A weapon achieves so much and falls in love along the way, and then his daughter accomplishes the same. It's so interesting how different generations echo one another."

The final scene of Evans family life started with an eruption of harsh whispers and knocking sounds. Merricat held her camera and quietly approached the kitchen door, which was left ajar so light and sound could trickle through. Her small hand pushed the door open, revealing Soul backed up against the pantry, snarling defensively at his father and older brother.

"You think you control me, but you don't," Soul said through gritted teeth. "That's what this is about, isn't it? You're pissed I've been on my own for eight years and now-"

"Don't dodge the issue," Victor retorted. "I just believe that this is rash, even for you. God knows you have a history of making hasty decisions with little regard for the family."

"I'm with Dad on this one," Wes admitted with crossed arms. "He's got more experience in this area, and face it, he knows better than you do."

A knot formed between Soul's eyebrows as he looked between his father and his brother. "I expect this from Dad, but not you. I thought you'd at least try to be on my side before throwing me under the bus."

Wes stared at his brother for a moment before throwing his head back with a careless laugh-the same jovial laugh he used at the dinner table. "I just think Dad makes a lot of sense," he said. "You're hilarious when you get all riled up. Just like the good 'ole days."

Patty felt her heart squeeze. The utter invalidation of whatever Soul was upset about struck a little close to home.

Soul looked between his father and brother before letting his expression harden with contempt. "Mom keeps asking me why I never called during the holidays or emailed her that I was ok," he said, darkness creeping into his tone. "This is why. You don't understand what I've been through-the things I've _done._ The next time you try to push me around, don't be surprised when I push right back."

His brother began to slowly back off.

The view from the camera jumped suddenly, as if someone had taken it from Merricat's hands and covered the lense. "Merricat," a soft voice said. It took Patty a moment to place it, but she was eighty percent sure it was August. "Let's put this away," he said. "You know what I've said about eavesdropping." The video faded to black.

There was certainly a lot of glean from those scenes-namely Soul's argument with Wes and his father. But when Patty turned to her sister to discuss what may or may not have been going on between the lines, she saw that Liz had long stopped paying attention to the footage. She had put an arm around Merricat, whose face was stained by large, silent tears.

Liz gingerly ran her fingers through Merricat's hair. "Do you miss Wes a lot?" she asked. With a trembling lip, the young girl nodded and laid her head on Liz's chest.

Patty fidgeted in her seat, torn between patting Merricat on the head in some show of consolation or just ignoring her tears entirely. Ultimately she chose the latter. Crying kids and grieving cousins were out of her depth, especially since her sister had already taken the role of 'shoulder to cry on.' Watching her older sister hold someone else like that made her feel odd. Misplaced. Maybe even a little annoyed. Since when did Liz stick her neck out for every younger sibling on the planet anyway?

Merricat wiped a tear from her eye and cleared her throat. "Mom and Dad don't want us to talk about it because they think we'll get in trouble, but I _have to._ The Blight Ghost killed Wes, I just _know_ it did."

A gear in Patty's head clicked, and her eyes doubled in size. An important piece of the puzzle was dangling right before her eyes, and with the unstoppable, insatiable drive of a predator drooling over its prey, she needed to find out how and where it fit.

"The Blight Ghost?" Patty asked. The sharpness of her question caused Merricat to tense. "What is it? How do you know it killed Wes? How come-"

" _AAAAAIIIEEEE!"_

Any opportunity she had of asking Merricat to explain went up in smoke at the sound of an ear-splitting shriek downstairs.

Patty was out the room like a bullet and followed the sound of the screaming. She recognized the lilting timbre of that voice as Cressida, Soul's mother, and it sounded like it was coming from downstairs. Aside from the soft footfalls of Merricat, she heard the familiar _shing_ of her sister transforming and caught Liz in midair without casting a single glance backwards. She sped down the hall to reach the stairs, only to be blocked by Soul bursting out of his own room.

She hadn't seen Soul this frenzied since the Battle on the Moon. Energy crackled around Soul's arms and torso as scythe blades unconsciously sprouted from his body like quills, a fierce look of protectiveness and fear consuming his face. Soul turned sharply to the right and bolted, the blades hissing and rippling in and out of his skin and knicking the walls as he went. Maka wasn't far behind.

"Soul, _stop!"_ Maka called after him. "Calm down before you hurt someone!"

When Patty made it to the main stairway, Victor, Annette, and August were clamoring to rush downstairs. Seth peeked out of his room to see the commotion, and the sight of Soul's blades caused Merricat to point and scream. Victor stopped short on the stairs and spun around, essentially blocking off the stairs entirely for the whole worried family.

With Liz firmly in hand, Patty hopped onto the polished banister and slid down the richly colored wood, easily bypassing the clogged family. Patty vaguely heard Soul's curses and Victor's protests, but her instincts were trained solely on the sound of Cressida's helpless voice.

Patty touched down on the carpeted floor and took off, sprinting down the hall to the living room where the sisters had first met the family. Soul's mother met them in the hall, panicstricken.

"There's a man in my mirror!" Cressida exclaimed, pointing into the living room with a shaking hand. "I-I-In there! There's a man-"

Thrusting Cressida to the side, Patty performed a forward roll into the room and pointed Liz at the mirror.

"Whoah, Patty!" Liz blurted.

A man in his mid-thirties with shoulder-length red hair was sheepishly staring through the glowing glass with his hands up in surrender. Spirit Albarn was undoubtedly safe from any gunfire all the way in witch city, but that didn't make him any less frightened.

"Slow your horses, it's just me," Spirit said. "You think I can check on Maka? It's not a bad time...is...it?" His voice steadily grew in pitch as he realized that no, this was not a good time.

Patty relented and dropped Liz to her side, just in time to watch Victor and Soul thunder into the room. It was unclear who was more red with rage.

" _Hwhat_ is going on?" Victor said to the Thompsons with quivering jowls. "What did you do to the mirror? And who is _that?_ Cress is half-frightened to death!"

Soul hadn't noticed the sisters at all, and was instead yelling at the man in the mirror. "Who the fuck do you think you are, Spirit?" he demanded. "There's such a thing as cell phones. For once in your life, have some fucking boundaries."

Victor wheeled on his son. "You _know_ this man?"

"Wish I didn't. That's Deathscythe," Soul said as if that explained everything. It was telling that he introduced Spirit by his title instead of his name in this moment of anger, perhaps in an attempt to distance Spirit's shenanigans from Maka.

"What's this Deathscythe character doing in my living room mirror?"

"How should I know? Personally, I don't even know how this piece of shit got our number."

"You're not suggesting that simply _anyone_ from Shibusen can just hijack our mirrors unannounced-"

As Soul bickered with his father, Spirit's face remained frozen in an awkward smile. Recognition flickered in his green eyes, and he interrupted Victor in mid-rant. "Wait a second, have we met?" he asked.

Victor stared at the mirror with distaste. " _Excuse me?_ "

Neither man had a chance to sort out who recognized whom. The small, vibrating form of Maka Albarn stood in the doorway, silhouetted in shadow by the warm light of the hall, and she was seething with boundless fury. "Everybody out," she said in a low, dangerous rumble. "I need to speak with my _Papa_ in private."

It was with those dark words that the living room emptied, leaving Maka alone with her father's reflection. The rest of the Evans family peered through the threshold, half in fear and half in curiosity, until Victor shoved the parlor doors shut.


	3. Chapter 3

The Thompson sisters watched Victor and Cressida scamper about the house with dark, musty tablecloths thrown over their shoulders, which they draped over every household mirror they could find. Still shaken from Spirit's impromptu call, the couple systematically unfurled the blankets over the mirrors as if they were somehow throwing a thick cover over this nightmarish weekend.

Liz had no ceremonial or symbolic gestures to calm or collect her wearied soul. She was stuck in this fractured reality, and it was up to her to put on her big girl panties and pick up every shard.

The high-pitched tone of Maka's admonishments were muffled by the parlor door, but they could still hear the gist of how 'unbelieveable' and 'tactless' Spirit was behaving. Her father's whimpering and pleas were harder to make out because his voice reached a frequency undetectable by human ears.

In the next room, Liz, Patty and Soul sat side by side at the Evans dining room table with varying expressions of discomfort and boredom. Soul had laid his head in his folded arms on the table, presumably to hide how stressed he was in the aftermath of his mother's panicked shrieking. Patty fidgeted in her seat and bounced her legs, but her eyes were glazed over as if she were thinking of something far away. Liz had to frown; since they'd arrived, it had become more difficult to figure out what her sister was thinking, and the mystery frightened her.

Patty's state of mind wasn't the mystery they were sent here to solve. This was about Wes. Though it didn't really matter now that he was dead, Liz wasn't sure whether she liked Wes or not. He was a spoiled rich boy accustomed to getting his way and was downright dismissive of other people's inconvenient emotions. But in Wes' faltering hope to reunite with his brother and his gentle nurturing nature towards his younger cousin, Liz saw a sliver of her own love for Patty. He never stopping blaming himself for his estrangement with Soul and was trying to fix the family he somehow blew apart. For all his faults and narcissism, Wes at least took responsibility for that.

She tapped her carefully filed nails on the table, letting her conclusions on Wes' character simmer. There were probably a hundred reasons not to like him, but was there any reason to kill him?

The one who could best answer that question was Soul. "So," she said. Soul's shaggy white head shifted in her direction, yet he remained face down. "About that fight you had with Wes yesterday before he was murdered."

Her bluntness jolted Soul out of his bored stupor. When he finally raised his head and made eye contact with Liz, his face was hostile and defensive.

"Siblings fight," he stated. "It's irrelevant."

"Well for one, not _all_ siblings fight," Liz said. She instinctively glanced towards Patty, only to discover that her sister wasn't there. She had vamoosed. Liz twisted in her seat, and over her shoulder she spied Patty staring dreamily out the window and into the beyond. Liz whistled to get Patty's attention and gestured for her to get her butt back over there and be her wingman, dammit.

It wasn't like Liz was in the habit of _ordering_ her younger sister around-quite the opposite. The sisters were usually so in sync that they didn't even need to communicate their movements. Any kind of disconnect was just...weird.

"And, um, and _for two_ ," Liz continued, whipping her body around back to Soul, "If you fight with your sibling a few hours before said sibling is murdered, the content of that argument is pretty relevant. Especially for someone whose alibi is more incriminating than, uh, alibi-y. That's right," she said with satisfaction. "We know about the secret passage. If you were really in the place you said you were, you had more opportunity than anyone in the house."

To the scythe's credit, he absorbed this information with an immobile poker face. It was the sudden reappearance of her sister, eyes and smile wide with lethal focus, that cracked his mask. Patty slid into the seat next to Soul and loudly scooted towards him. All four legs of her chair scraped against the floor until she was literally rubbing shoulders with him, something that clearly made Soul uncomfortable and a little frightened.

"Is he talkin' yet, sis?" Patty asked with a lower, more threatening voice. "Need me to make him squeal?"

"No, not yet," Liz said, smug. She was glad to get Patty back down to Earth. "Let's give him another chance to explain himself."

He cast his eyes downward and exhaled a single heavy breath. "I did fight with Wes that night," Soul said. The tone of his voice was controlled and steady, but not once did he look either Thompson in the face. "I got a little heated because I was counting on him for a favor, but instead the jerkoff got my _dad_ involved so they could gang up on me."

"Erhm, weren't you just saying yesterday that Wes was the best of us?"

"Just because I love my brother doesn't mean he never gets on my nerves!" Soul snapped. "The whole thing reeked of the same bullshit I used to deal with before leaving home. I told him so before storming away." The bitter edge of Soul's voice confirmed something Liz had already suspected-that this was his last conversation with his older brother. Soul and Wes' relationship was already complicated, but to end it on that note...

Before Liz could ask Soul to elaborate on his fight with Wes, the doors of the parlor flew open. They heard Maka's bare feet hurry into the kitchen, animosity and stress oozing with every step. Whatever had gone down with Spirit had put Maka in a poor mood, and there was no telling how her temper would interact with Soul's sourness.

Maka slid into a chair across from Soul, who took his meister's appearance as an opportunity to change the subject. "So what did Spirit want?"

Maka sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Believe it or not, it wasn't to check up on me. Not exactly. Witches are dredging up ancient history to finalize this treaty with Shibusen, and he wanted to tell me that he might end up becoming cellmates with Mama as punishment for killing a witch. Great, huh?"

A lot was changing under Kid's regime, including rules about soul harvesting. There really wasn't a statute of limitations on murder anymore, even for witches.

"Right now, I don't care if they throw him in witch prison," Maka continued. "It wasn't ok for him to call here like that, even if he was worried about me. Not with everything that's going on." She said nothing of the possibility that her dear absent Mama was under witch scrutiny.

Soul paused for a moment before speaking. "You don't mean that," he finally said. "You do care. I mean, he's a bastard who scared the shit out of my mom, but he's still your dad. Don't say stuff you don't mean."

A sudden coldness settled in the air between the two partners as Maka gave Soul a stony stare. "Don't project _your_ feelings onto _my_ relationship with my father," Maka said simply. Her lip trembled, but she kept her tone firm. "I think you should just openly say what's on your mind instead of trying to apply your tangled emotions to someone else's life."

With a dismissive roll of his eyes, Soul stood up. "Not this again," he muttered. To the Thompsons, he said, "Sorry, I think I'm gonna head upstairs. Clear my head of all this bullshit."

Maka shot out of her seat too. "You can't just run off." But that was exactly what Soul was doing, running off, and he had essentially left the room when Maka chased after him, her voice growing more exasperated and desperate with every word. "Everyone is so _worried_ about you, but we can't do a thing unless you say something. How am I supposed to help you through this if you keep shutting me out? Please Soul-"

Their echoing voices dissolved into silence. The Thompson sisters were both dumbfounded and delighted, because they _never_ got a front seat for Soul/Maka relationship drama.

"Wow," was Patty's short, stunned response.

"Yeah," Liz agreed. She covered her mouth to muffle a laugh. "Wow."

"Somebody ain't getting laid tonight."

"Ha! Patty, that's mean."

"Do you see a lie?"

"Not a single one."

This short moment of bonding sent a fresh rush of affection to Liz's stomach to her cheeks. This had been a long, trying day. That's all this weirdness with Patty was-the lingering effect of mental exhaustion and stress. Confident that she and Patty were once more on the same page, she turned to to her sister.

"Let's go over what we know," Liz said, crossing her long legs in her chair. She tapped a finger on her chin. "Okay, so Wes, family golden child and celebrity, was dead by 7:30 Saturday night. The killer takes a secret passage to the west wing of the house and waits on the roof for Wes to show up. He shoots Wes dead and pushes the body over the rail. August is passed out in his room with Annette. Maka was playing piano with Cressida and Victor. Soul was in the room where the secret passage leads, but he didn't see anything. Merricat is in clear, but her brother Seth is still unaccounted for."

"What about the Blight Ghost?" Patty asked, cocking her head to the side.

Liz suppressed a shiver. She did not give up her otherwise peaceful Thanksgiving weekend so she could wrangle goddamn ghosts, even if Patty was obsessed with bringing it up at every opportunity. "Okay, let's leave the Blight whatever out of this and stick to what we know."

Patty leaned back on her chair, silent and thoughtful. Liz already had her own ideas, but if the crime procedurals on TV taught her anything, it was that talking out the investigation was a helpful way to bounce off observations and find connections.

"A lot of people were mad at Wes in Merricat's videos," Patty admitted. "Seth was like 'You're really good at chasing away brothers' and Wes was like, 'Yeah, well you're super funny Seth. Tell it again.' I guess he was trying to make fun of Wes for chasing Soul away when he was younger. And Soul was all, 'The next time you push me I'll fuck you up bucko.' If I saw anyone else say that to their sibling, I'd say it was a threat."

"Right." Liz chewed on her lip. "A threat isn't the same as motive though, and we don't know what Soul was fighting with Wes about in the first place. Or Seth, for that matter."

"Yes we do!" Patty started to snap her fingers to jog her memory, and her eyes grew wide and excited when she finally pinpointed her thought. "Wes chased away Seth's brother. The Grammy guy!"

Liz grabbed Patty's shoulders with an electric grin. "Yes! You're right! That's it!" The energy between the two sisters was palpable, and both girls were on the verge of leaping from their chairs and jumping up and down. "That Nick guy has basically avoided the family since the Grammy fiasco. It's a long shot, but it sounds like a possible motive. Patty, we've got our first suspect!"

Her sister nodded furiously, smile growing wider by the second. "Let's go find Seth!"

"Yes!"

"Let's pin the murder on him!"

The steady, instinctual resonance and excitement building between the sisters flew off the rails. "No! Patty, we need to make sure this kid really did it first."

"But you said we had to protect our _own,_ and Soul's alibi isn't getting any stronger is it?"

Liz did want to stay out of this whole murder business at first. The moment her boots touched the muddy ground, she knew that she wanted to turn straight back home. There was something in the air and earth that put her off, and that feeling had only grown stronger since they dug deeper into the Evans family tapestry. Something was _wrong_ here. And it was affecting everyone in the family, even the young and innocent.

While Patty had searched the roof, Liz had waited dutifully by the stairs until she heard the bookcase move and saw Merricat reveal herself in the passageway. The girl had looked so small, so vulnerable, so honest-to-death _terrified_ of what was going to happen to her family. Few things made Liz weak, but young kids with large, frightened eyes were at the top of the list. Seth might have had a pretty good motive, but he was Merricat's older brother. She couldn't avenge the death of one elder sibling by sacrificing another.

"I did say that," Liz said, measuring her words. "But I don't want to ruin some kid's life just because we need a patzi."

"Okey doke." Patty's voice lost its sharpness, and a fog of discomfort settled between the sisters again.

The Thompsons were the halves of a two-piece puzzle. They weren't fighting, but they weren't fitting either.

"Let's talk to him," Liz suggested. She tried to add in that lost pep back into her voice, to no avail. "Come on, Patty, maybe you're right and he did do it. I just want to be sure before we call in cavalry."

"That sounds fine," Patty replied dully. "Let's go find him."

They had last seen Seth upstairs when Cressida was screaming bloody murder. It was there that they decided to start their search.

In the house's chronic silence, every sound, no matter how soft, reverberated like thunder in the hall, from Cressida's frantic whispering to her husband to August's lumbering footsteps down the staircase. At the base of the stairs, Liz and Patty waited for August to pass with his face set in a frown and his hands in his pockets. With August out of the way, Liz thought, his son ought to be easy to corner and interrogate.

To Liz's chagrin, there was one pouting obstacle standing in their way-Seth's mother. Once they had climbed the stairs, Annette wheeled around a corner and attempted to trap them at the top of the stairwell. "Where do you think you're going?" she demanded in a I'm-an-upper-class-mother voice. "If I'm not mistaken, you're not supposed to be going anywhere in this house without a family member."

She was so damn tired of police telling her to stay in her line, random rich people telling her what to do. Liz set her jaw and looked Annette square in the face. "You're right," she said. "If I'm not mistaken, we haven't questioned _you_ yet. Funny how this works out, huh?"

Annette glared at the sisters and gave them a haughty laugh. "You don't have the right or authority to question me or anyone in my family."

Liz didn't really have a response lined up for that one because she thought Annette was right, but Patty somehow did. "Oh, we do," her sister said, absolutely certain. "Unless you want to call up your lawyer and ask him first." 

The older woman's eyes flicked between the the Thompsons, clearly agitated by Patty's insolence. To Liz's surprise, Annette did not challenge Patty. She sighed, glanced at her son's closed bedroom door, and said, "Well you better follow me then. Let's get this over with somewhere private."

It was pretty obvious that Annette was just trying to get them away from her son as quickly as possible. If Liz and Patty were going to waste time talking to this lady, they were going to get something out of it.

She led the sisters into what Liz presumed to be Annette and August's bedroom. Women's clothing erupted from a piece of carry-on luggage left unzipped and open on the floor and spread all the way towards a rosewood vanity, which itself was scattered with errant tubes of lipstick and compacts. For all of her appearances, Annette Veneer-Evans was a messy woman. A silky babydoll nightie thing was draped over an arm chair, but from what Liz could tell from its lack of tags or wrinkles, the garment had been worn but not, er, _used._

When Liz cast her eyes on the bed, she thought it might as well have a duct taped line right down the center. The duvet was bunched and the sheets untucked on the side closest to the vanity, but the other side looked freshly made and pristine. Men's shoes were neatly lined up by a small nightstand, which was chock full of specifically arranged orange pill bottles.

Annette was unfazed by the controlled chaos of her bedroom. She plopped right onto the neat side of the bed, folded her arms and crossed her legs.

"Here's my statement," Annette said, business-like. "I left dinner with the others at six. Vic and his sons were having an argument, so I-" Patty had wandered over the nightstand and begun to examine the pill bottles one by one. The clattering of medication caused Annette to falter. "Hem, I went upstairs to my room. After I helped measure out August's medication, I took a long bath, read a book, and lost complete track of time until-well, you know."

Patty shook her handfuls of pill bottles like a pair of maracas. "So which ones did you give him?" she asked. "The Xanax? Epogen? Zoloft? Oh wait, that's for you."

"Put those down!" Annette snapped. She made a movement to lunge out of her seat, but restrained herself and tugged at her cardigan sleeves instead.

Liz clicked her tongue. "Okay, how about you walk us through what happened that night in more detail. We want to know everything."

Annette's cheeks were almost as red as her hair, though whether it was out of embarrassment or frustration Liz wasn't sure. The older woman cleared her throat before speaking. "We ate dinner early that evening," she said. "We were trickling out of the dining room around seven. Wes was quiet the entire meal, which I found strange right away. He's usually so talkative, so charismatic, so…" Annette's eyes shifted away from the sisters, searching for the right word.

"Charming," she finally decided, though she didn't look satisfied with her choice. Apparently, golden Wes was literally indescribable. "Then again, most of us were quiet. There was a huge fight in kitchen beforehand between Wes, his brother and his father, though I don't know what about. After dinner, I tried to read in the upstairs study, but Soul came in and I wanted more privacy." Her voice adopted a sour note when she spoke Soul's name.

And now a witness saw Soul going into the study before murder, putting him in the prime spot to commit the crime in the first place. Another chat with Soul was definitely in order.

"I returned here, to my room," Annette continued. "I drew a bath-this is a guest room so the bathroom is accessible by the hall-but before I got inside I helped August measure out his medication for the night. Once I was sure he was asleep, I sat in the bath and finished my book." Annette gestured to a novel on her vanity-a thin book titled 'Peyton Place.'

"Right," Liz said with a frown. She sauntered over the to vanity and picked the familiar book up off the table. It looked brand new, nothing at all like her own copy. "You know, I was really glad when Selena made up with her step-dad at the end. Real heart-warming," she said, tracing a finger along the book's smooth cover. She opened it and the spine cracked like an egg on the kitchen counter.

"I agree," Annette replied eagerly. "That's why I lost track of time. It's such an engaging story."

Liz skimmed the first page of the book and hid a smile. No one in the Evans family had ever been put under a sharp microscope thanks to their shield of wealth, so none of them knew how to build a halfway decent lie or even coordinate alibis. It was honestly a little sad, but any pity Liz would have felt for the woman evaporated when Annette gave her a look of self-satisfied smugness, like she thought she had outsmarted Liz with a single lie.

Just because Liz came from rougher beginnings than Annette Veneer-Evans didn't mean she was dumb. "You don't know _jack shit_ about this book," Liz said, dropping the novel back onto the vanity. Annette immediately blanched. "If you read more than ten pages of this thing, you would have known Selena killed her step-dad because he was an abusive freak."

"Well, I-" Annette started, a rosy blush growing across her stretched cheeks. "I was distracted while I read. I thought of a lot of other things."

Patty rejoined Liz by the bed, and they loomed over the older woman. "If you weren't reading this book like you said you were, it makes me wonder what you really were doing. What you're trying so hard to cover up," Liz said.

Annette's expression shifted from startled fear to firm resignation. She sucked on her cheek, mulling over how to broach the subject, before finally looking up at the girls. "I was in the bath like I said," she began. "But I was waiting for someone. Not my husband."

"Who?" Liz demanded. "Victor? You were diddling on the side with your husband's brother?"

"No," Annette said, darkening again. "Wes."

Something snapped into place in Liz's memory. She remembered Annette's fawning smile, her hands slowly caressing Wes's shirt sleeve at dinner, her tinkling laugh at something her nephew said that wasn't even that funny. "You planned a bathtime rendezvous. With. Your. _NEPHEW!"_

Patty gasped with delight. "Ewwwwwww, that's the grossest thing I've heard in weeeeeeeks!"

"You make a mountain of a mole hill," Annette said cooly. Thanks to a thick blanket of delusion, that goddamn cougar looked quite comfortable admitting that she had the hots for a family member half her age. "I'm only related to him through marriage. It's not as taboo as you think."

"It's _cheating_ ," Liz said, her mind immediately jumping to Spirit Albarn. His adulterous impulses wrecked his marriage, and that was just targeting random women. What damage could that lech have done if he was set loose on Kamiko Albarn's extended family?

Annette chuckled. "You girls have some naive ideas as to what true family is. Marriage isn't sacrosanct or eternal. God knows August can't get his old girlfriends out of his head. I won't be judged for simply coping."

"Oh I'm judging _hard_ , lady. Starting an affair with your nephew is so-"

"He propositioned me!" Annette blurted. The controlled appearance the redhead maintained in public was crumbling away, and Liz could see why this woman's living space was destined to be dysfunctional. "I admit I sometimes flirted when I had drank too much champagne. He was an extremely attractive, charming young man. I never acted on my own flirtations until he communicated to _me_ that he was interested. I'll show you."

Annette hurried to the bedside table to extract a small piece of paper. "This was slipped under my door," she said, handing it to Liz. The note was handwritten in a slanted, semi-cursive scrawl.

 _I'd like to see you again tonight. Meet me in the bath, 7pm? Sincerely, Wes_

Well damn. That didn't sound like an invitation for some innocent auntie-nephew time. "I take it he never showed?" Annette's spurt of confidence faltered, and she shook her head. _Well thank Death for that._

What if Wes reneged on his invitation and told his aunt to take her old ladyness someplace else? The humiliation of being rejected by _an extremely attractive, charming young man_ could have sent Annette over the edge and convinced her to pull the trigger on the roof. Or, Liz thought, Annette's hots for her own nephew could be behind the _killer's_ motive. August certainly would not have been jazzed to hear his wife was trying to boink his nephew. Victor seemed to be the type of take issue with his perfect son's decidedly improper sexual liaison. Hell, maybe skinny Seth, who was already pissed at Wes for causing his brother to skip Thanksgiving, could have fired that killshot and gotten rid of his meddling cousin once and for all.

No, Liz needed to focus on what really mattered, not get carried away with theories. "So did you really see Soul in the upstairs study?" she asked.

"I saw him heading in that direction when I was, ahem, leaving the bedroom to prepare myself," Annette answered. "But I suppose no, I did not see him physically go inside."

With a nod to Patty, Liz pocketed the incriminating sex-note and left Annette, a middle-aged mother with no scruples or loyalties but to her own children, alone to lie in her unmade bed.

They closed the door on Annette and her grossness and set their sights back on their original target-Seth, the neglected cousin who resented Wes' ability to make or break the entire family.

He was in his room, scrolling on a laptop with the sullen expression of a bored prince.

"You!" Patty said, pointing at him. "We need to talk to you about… _MURDER_."

Patty was trying to shake their suspect up with an indirect accusation. The tactic might have worked on most, but not a rich boy who had never come even a hair's breadth away from experiencing an actual consequence.

"I'm seventeen years old," Seth said bluntly. "I only just got my driver's license. What makes you think I'm capable of killing anybody?"

Patty grinned and exchanged a knowing glance with her sister. "You really don't know who you're talking to, bub."

Seth's eyes flared with a little fear before putting up another wall of contempt. The Evans boys clearly were trained to confront the unknown by ridiculing or discounting it entirely. "Look, I was mad at Wes for keeping Nick away. We're close, and I hardly see him anymore thanks to his big career. I miss having him around." Seth's tone briefly warmed. "Wes was alway an asshole, to Nick and me, but I didn't want to kill him."

Liz thought of Merricat's wide, terrified eyes staring through the shadows of the secret passageway. "What about your sister? Are you close with her?"

He snorted. "Merri _gnat_? She's less of a sibling and more of a pest. Anyways," he said, moving the topic along, "I think you're barking up the wrong tree questioning us. An outsider obviously snuck in here and did it."

"Like who?" Liz asked.

"Why are you asking me? It could have been an escaped convict, a crazy girlfriend, a jilted boyfriend, or even the goddamn Blight Ghost for all I know!"

The moment he mentioned the name of that damn ghost, Patty lurched forward, a high striker's shrill ringing after a ferocious hammer hit. "Everyone keeps talking about this Blight Ghost," Patty said. The urgency in her voice caused Seth to jerk away from her, startled. "Why is that? What is it? Tell us the big frickin' secret already!"

"You really don't know?" Seth asked with genuine confusion.

Liz didn't like where this conversation was headed, but if it was important to Patty it was worth exploring, for at least a moment. "How about you enlighten us, buddy?" she asked.

Seth rolled his eyes at them both. He sat up on the bed, casting a glance at the doorway to make sure no one was snooping. "Alright, the Blight Ghost is something Wes made up on his own so he could have an excuse to tromp around the abandoned house over the hill and scare the crap out of the rest of us kids."

Abandoned house over the hill? Liz vaguely recalled seeing some shapes through the woods on their way to the Evans estate, but she didn't look long enough to commit them to memory. "So...what did you all do in there?"

"It's like a homemade haunted house," Seth explained. "Wes and one of the adults, usually my dad, went to the house first. They put on masks, hid a bunch of booby traps, and left these handwritten clues all over the property. When Nick, Soul, and I showed up, we followed the little slips of paper throughout the entire property until we found the pig's head."

" _The what?!"_

"The pig's head," Seth repeated, his tone growing more patronizing and irritated with every word. "It's a part of the ghost story, okay? The head we found was never real. It was just a rubber Halloween prop Dad found for the family's annual creepy Easter egg hunt. Once we found the head, we'd all go home and laugh about it over dessert or something."

In Liz's book, haunted houses were a no, and ghosts were a loud _hell no._ It was a relief to learn that there wasn't much haunting going on at all-just routine breaking and entering. Rich families were so weird. "So the Blight Ghost is a fabrication," she said. Despite her own relief, Liz could sense her sister deflating besider her. "Just a completely fake thing your family made up to pass the time."

"Depends." Her blood immediately ran cold. Seth stroked his chin, silently assessing their interest. "Do you want the truth, or the story?"

Liz answered without thinking, "Truth."

"Story!" Patty said.

The teenage boy looked warily between them before making a show of clearing his throat and cracking his knuckles. Liz figured that Seth had never had the full attention of two beautiful blondes in his entire life, and judging by his affective clearing of the throat, he was not about to waste this golden opportunity.

"Okay. The truth. The house used to belong to Tamsin Blight, a local recluse who made a living in husbandry, mostly by breeding pigs. She apparently raised the largest hogs the region had ever seen, and won a lot of prizes for it. She basically lived alone her whole life until a couple of burglars broke in, killed her, and took all the silver. Not much interesting about it, except that no one has bothered to demolish her old house yet."

"But according to legend, Tamsin Blight was more dangerous than your standard local weirdo. She was the type who would butcher her pigs at midnight and water her plants with their blood, or bake a dozen pies only to sprinkle the crust with arsenic instead sugar. Some people said they blacked out and woke up in her pig pen, but they had no idea how they got there."

At this point, Liz was wringing the bottom of her shirt in her shaking hands and actively stopping her teeth from chattering. Patty remained completely unfazed, and was perhaps even bored by Seth's storytelling skills.

"Eventually, terrified locals decided to confront Tamsin Blight themselves, but when they stormed the place to do a citizen's arrest, they ended up going too far. She was executed, decapitated right inside her house. They took her silver to frame it up as a burglary gone wrong. The police never found the killers because when they visited the house they kept having visions. They saw specters of her head rolling in the shadows and bleeding through the floorboards.

"Their search ended in her kitchen, where they found this antique oven. And when they looked inside, they found. The bloody, rotting head. Of. A pig."

Seth leaned backwards to let the story's conclusion sink in. After a single beat of silence, Patty threw back her head and hooted with laughter. " _Whaaaaat?_ " she asked between breathless snickers. "A pig head? That's the big reveal? Everyone is frightened of, BAHAHAHA, a _ghost ham_?!"

As her sister gleefully howled and oinked, Liz slowly breathed in and out to calm her racing heart. She had to breathe, to get her bearings.

Seth's cheeks turned maroon. "Well it's not like I made it up!" he croaked. "I was just telling you what everyone else says happened. I wasn't trying to really scare you or anything."

"Hey kid, it's alright," Patty said, playfully punching Seth's shoulder. He visibly winced at the impact. "What you told us was super helpful. Now we know why your sister thinks a ghost killed Wes."

The teenage boy snorted. "Merricat is _obsessed._ She's been talking about visiting the Blight House for the first time for weeks, though it's probably never going to happen now. We were supposed to restart the tradition and poke around the place at midnight last night. Wes even went ahead to plant the clues right after dinner, though he came back early."

Seth grew quiet. He was, like Liz, putting together the timeline of Wes' movements from the night before. If dinner ended around 7 and Wes was murdered at 7:30 pm, he must have spent the bulk of those 30 minutes prepping the house next door before something made him head home early.

Patty, now calm after her bout of hilarity, took that conclusion to its next logical step. "Why do you think he came back?" she asked.

Seth answered with a shrug. "Dunno. You would have to ask him." Speaking of Wes had drained Seth of whatever motivation he had to continue talking. He mumbled an excuse and quickly left the room.

"Hey, sis." Patty was vibrating with excitement in a way Liz hadn't seen all day. "You know what this means right? We gotta visit the _Blight House."_

"Uh, yeah, I dunno Patty, that seems like a detour, you know?" Liz said with a nervous laugh. "Haunted houses aren't our division."

Patty blinked at her, confused yet insistent. "It's not a detour. When you solve a murder, aren't you supposed to go to the last place the vic went?"

There was some truth to what Patty was saying, even if it did mean poking around some dead lady's house and tripping over dead pig skulls. She had to be brave. "Ok, we'll check it out," Liz said diplomatically. "The thing is, we don't even know where to find this Blight place."

Patty grinned with her teeth. "I know exactly where to go."

Outside the Evans house, the Thompson sisters rounded the western corner, passed the trampled African violets and bloodied stones, and approached the woods at the end of the green. It was tough to see through the thicket-the Evanses obviously didn't see the need to weed wack property that didn't belong to them-but as they drew closer, Liz could make out a winding dirt path through the forest. Judging by the overgrowth, it had been a long time since anyone traveled this particular path.

Though it was hardly past noon, an incoming storm had bruised the sky a grim shade of watery grey. The thick cover of the forest separating the Evans mansion from what used to be the home of Tamsin Blight snuffed out the sun, swathing the overgrown dirt trail connecting the properties in shadow. As a rule, Liz did not lead her sister down dark paths when she couldn't see what lay on the other side. It was a lesson she learned back when they still lived in Brooklyn. Patty, apparently, did not absorb this lesson from their tumultuous childhood and tramped straight into the wood. Liz had to follow behind.

Her foot-falls on dead leaves were a steady heartbeat.

 _Cru-crunch. Cru-crunch._

Each echoing sound seemed to spike Liz's nerves. Her hands numbed and saliva pooled underneath her tongue. With every sloshing of Patty's boots, small whimpers died at her throat; with each bit of dirt and grime kicked up by her sister, Liz felt cold beads of sweat begin to form on her brow. Patty kept sloshing her boots through the layer of leaves packed onto the path, kicking up dirt and grime with every step.

 _Cru-crunch. Cru-crunch._

Sudden rustling sent Liz's heart leaping into her throat, sputtering as she began to choke on her own spit. A squirrel darted from the foliage across the forest floor, and she withheld a whimper as she placed her hands on Patty's shoulders, gripping until her knuckles turned white and following her in a conga line through the darkness.

 _Cru-crunch. Cru-crunch._

Patty's humming of the working song from _Snow White_ helped Liz remain at least marginally focused amidst her growing fear. Though she couldn't articulate why, the weird feeling she'd gotten when they arrived in horrible, wet New Jersey had intensified. Her acute stress response was screaming _flight, flight, flight,_ and it grew all the more earnest when the sisters emerged from the woods and came face to face with the legendary Blight House.

The structure might have looked a lot like a dollhouse in its prime, but now it was a skeleton of a home held up by crumbling brick and sheltered by rotting shingles. It was two stories and featured a storybook turret with a wraparound porch, and a milky haze hung over the place, cobwebs made of water vapor and the forgotten memories of the home's long-dead tenant. To the side of the house was shabby structure with no roof, possibly what used to be the pen of Tamsin Blight's award-winning pigs, and a small pond completely covered in algae and surrounded in weeds. Why anyone would willingly bring their kids here-for the purpose of scaring the pants off them no less-was mind-boggling.

The sisters leapt over a sinkhole in the middle of the porch to make it to the front door. The cracked glass of the front windows was covered in grime too thick to reveal what was inside. All Liz could see when she peered through was her own broken reflection shining back at her like a twisted nightmare.

"I have a bad feeling about this, Patty," Liz whispered, transfixed by dozens of blue eyes on murky grey. "A really baaaaaaad feeling."

"That's a really good sheep, sis, but this is the pig lady's house, remember?" Patty babbled. " _Oink, oink, oink, oink, OINK!_ " She kicked the door open in a furious motion that caused the entire building to groan in pain.

"Shit, I'm being serious!" Liz said, her breath growing more and more frayed. If Kid were here, he would have calmly suggested Liz transform and travel with him until she had gotten her bearings. But he wasn't there, and Liz suspected that if she didn't keep it together, if she dissolved into a blubbering mess like she usually did in spooky situations, Patty would stop listening to her.

With a frantic heart and a stiff upper lip, Liz followed her sister into the house. Though somewhat shielded by the weather, the interior of the house was in even worse shape than the outside. The cottage's single staircase had collapsed, bits of splintered wood and mulch piled on the floor where what were once steps sank into themselves. The wallpaper had peeled away in long strips, and the walls were riddled with holes burrowed by vermin who made the Blight House their home.

The sisters moved from room to room, two ghosts exploring the ruins of someone else's life. It was like Tamsin Blight just up and left her house one day so nature could quietly reclaim it for the wild. The place was strewn with artifacts-an abandoned teacup too dusty to show its china pattern, a portrait of a smiling woman with a dark red curls cascading over her shoulder and a long, upturned nose posing with three enormous brown hogs ("Tamsin Blight was a hottie," Patty remarked). But these broken things didn't all appear to be mother nature's doing. The brass curtain rods in the front row had been pulled down as if by force, and strange gashes were deeply inscribed on almost every wall.

The slash marks were so long, so deep. Was this the doing of Tamsin Blight's murderer?

Violence was written into the history of this house, and somewhere inside was a dark heart that beat.

Septic, gnawing fear squirmed like a knot of worms in Liz's stomach. Her nose was leaking. Her bones were vibrating from fear, and her heart was a frantic baby bird struggling to stay airborne with haphazard, unrhythmic wings.

In the third room, a rush of cold air bit Liz's cheeks. An entire corner of the house was gone. Just gone. The wall of the structure fell away in a swooping pattern so smooth that it might have been built that way, but surely no one built a house with such a gaping hole. Curious, Liz grazed her fingers along the wall's edge and was shocked at how clean it was, like it was the work of a sharp tool instead of erosion and decay.

"Oh goody, a quarter of the whole house is gone," Liz said, rubbing her arms to stay warm. It was only by speaking aloud that she realized just how hysterical she was. "The murderer used a powersaw on freaking Tamsin whatsherface and took a piece of the house with him. This is nice. Patty, have you looked at all this?"

"Liz." Patty had already gone through the next door, and her voice was full of rapturous wonder. "Come look at _this."_

She shuffled through the door, leaving the half-open room behind and entering what was supposed to be a kitchen. There were no windows, just mold seeping through the cabinets and ash all over the floor and lower walls. The tiled floor was network of cracks that spidered out from a single focal point-the kitchen oven.

A cast iron stove was the epicenter of all the cracks and patterns of soot. It looked like an ornate piece, but it was impossible to tell. The entire thing was covered in thick, rusty chains wound tight around the stove doors. The chainlinks were bolted into place by an ancient-looking lock.

"What is that?" Liz whispered in a feathery voice. "Why is it covered in chains?"

"I reckon that's the oven where they found that pig head," Patty said. "Hey! Maybe it's still in there! That's why it's all chained up, to keep it from getting out. I'm gonna check."

"No!" Liz gasped. "Patty, no!"

"Patty, YES!" her sister said with glee. Patty looked around the room, strategizing, until she spotted an exposed waterpipe jutting from the ceiling. She jumped and snapped the pipe like a pixie stick, causing trapped fluid to spew out and splatter noisily onto the floor.

Frozen in place and heart thumping, soft protests came almost involuntarily from Liz's throat, begging Patty to just turn back as her sister twirled the pipe around experimentally, getting a feel for its weight. She wound her new weapon over her shoulder like a baseball bat and swung it down on the lock.

The loud _CLANG_ of the stove and the rattle of the chains caused Liz to jump. The walls groaned.

"Patty, don't," Liz repeated. "Patty please, just leave it."

 _CLANG!_

 _Grooooooan._

"This place is gonna fall down over our heads if you keep-" 

_CLANG!_

 _Grooooooan._

"Patty!"

 _CLANG!_

The sound of the metal striking metal drowned out Liz's hoarse voice. She couldn't help it now; from the top of her head to the tips of her toenails, she trembled uncontrollably. Any other words of protest had effectively scampered away from the symphony of sounds. She could only watch as the chains, loosened by the pounding, slid down and exposed the wrought iron stove doors. To her complete horror, faint blue light trickled out door edges, and the walls began to shudder.

"One more should do it," her sister said, breathless. "Liz, I think we're going to find a real live ghost in here!" The pipe had been bent by Patty's repeated smashing, yet she raised it in one final arc above her head.

The lock snapped off. An opaque cloud of exhaust poured through the cracks in the stove, and a high-pitched shrieking, no, _squealing_ shook the hovel's very foundations. A cloud of dense hot air enveloped the room, and Patty vanished.

Her own pumping blood or hoarse screams went unnoticed to her. Her sister was _gone._ Fingers grasping and snatching at nothing, she bolted forward straight to the heart of the demonic squealing, straight into the murky air, until she spotted her sister's sandy bob. Bending low, Liz scooped up her sister and threw Patty over her shoulder in a fireman's carry and turned on her heel.

Escaping the house was a blur. Liz ran until the soles of her feet ached and the side of her ribcage was ravaged by a stabbing sensation. Exertion had filled her mouth with copper and adrenaline filled her mind with rolling drums, she couldn't make sense of what was what. All she knew was that she carried her wiggling sister back into the half-room, past the walls of slashes, through the abandoned garden, and down the leafy path. When she stepped on Evans property and arrived at sweet, damp safety, exhaustion caused her knees to fail, and Liz let her sister roll off her shoulder and into the grass.

" _Whoah,"_ Patty breathed, sitting up.

Liz remained unmoving on the grass on her back, gasping for breath. Every inhale stung her ribs, every passing moment only adding to the throbbing ache behind her temples. Her lungs weren't big enough for the amount of air she needed, and the relative safety of the Evans home wasn't solid enough to calm the sudden pounding that seemed to engulf her very being.

" _That was a ghost sis!_ Not like the Neidhog ghosts, but a ghost! I bet if we went back we would find the Blight lady floating around. Let's go ask her what happened to Wes."

"No." Liz snapped, her voice hoarse and still scratchy in her throat. She got on her hands and knees, and winced as mud seeped into her jeans. "My heebie jeebie bells are ringing off the hook. There was nothing for us in that house, and it's too dangerous to go back. Hell, the whole place was crumbling around us-"

Patty was already on her feet, and she grabbed Liz's hand to help her sister off the ground. "But it wasn't! And there was-"

"This isn't a game, Patty! We aren't in the middle of some big puzzle to solve. We're dealing with real people, with real tragedy."

Her sister's lower lip trembled. "Maybe I should just go back on my own." Patty turned to head back into forest. "If I hurry, maybe the ghost will still be there." Liz's heart immediately leapt to her throat, and she gathered whatever shred of strength she had left to snatch Patty's wrist and wrench her back towards the house.

"I'm not going to let you just _walk_ into danger. _Never!"_ Patty looked at her, stunned by Liz's sharp tone and the way her sister towered over her. Her dirty blonde hair was loose in front of her face, and her clothes and shoes were dirtied from mud and wet, and her expression coarse with a mixture of anger and fear. Patty's wavelength shrank away from her, causing any residual resonance to ebb like a low tide.

"Okay," Patty stated. "We'll do what _you_ want." Her arm had become limp in Liz's hand, and when Liz finally dropped Patty's wrist, it swung back and forth as it settled back at her side.

The girls headed back towards the hulking mansion. Liz searched for justifications for her decisions, reasons why she wasn't being just like their mother, but pushed it to the back of her mind when she came up with none.


	4. Chapter 4

Liz had always said that even though she wasn't book smart, she at least had 'people skills.' Meanwhile, Patty had always thought that even though she didn't have 'people skills,' she at least had 'Liz skills.' When she saw her older sister clutch her chest to still her overwrought heart, Patty realized she could not even claim that much.

The peculiar adventure through the ruins of the Blight House was tarnished now by Liz's bloodless face and sharp voice, the most fun she had had all week reduced to an unhappy reminder that Patty didn't know how to stop when Liz said 'when.'

But there was also a slow burning anger beneath Patty's embarrassment. It wasn't her fault that the Blight House was scary, and it wasn't fair that _she_ should take the blame if Liz bolted. She was just trying to jump into puddle. She didn't _mean_ to fall into the entire ocean.

The sisters walked back into the Evans manor, their clothing covered in grass stains and their hair riddled with knots; their mud-caked boots squelched against the pristine floor with every step. Sapped of speed and strength after booking it from the Blight House, Liz drifted towards the kitchen, where they had interrogated Soul only a couple hours earlier. Patty meandered behind, trying and failing to think of a way to say 'I'm sorry for whatever I did' without sounding like a liar.

Cressida was inside the kitchen, staring out a window while she repeatedly dried a dinner plate, enchanted by the sunlight trickling into the room. When she noticed the girls standing at the threshold, Cressida dropped the towel and busied herself with putting away the remaining dry dishes.

Everyone was in their own world in this house. Patty hated trying to guess things she couldn't see. The kitchen was a carbon copy of a Pottery Barn spread, complete with a series of decorative plates mounted on the wall, a wood block containing half a dozen cooking knives, and a hanging plant whose vines dangled above the sink. The kitchen table's surface was made of dark green tile, like damp moss.

"I'm going to get some water?" The pitch of Liz's voice swung upward when she spoke.

It took Patty a moment to realize that her sister was asking Soul's mother for permission. "Oh, of course!" Cressida said. "I'll get it for you. You look like you've had a fright."

"You could say that," Liz responded, sitting down at the table and resting her elbows on the deep green.

Patty lingered in the doorway. She was too restless to sit, so she entered the kitchen anyway and rooted herself by the corner of the kitchen table and entertained herself by staring at the wood grain, memorizing its wavering pattern. The way the grain bent suddenly to one side before evening out into a straight line reminded her of a heart beat.

After pouring Liz a drink from a glass jug full of ice water, Cressida tentatively slid it towards her on the table. Though she looked haggard and drained, Soul's mother was incredibly young looking. Her delicate cheekbones were a brownish reddish from crying, and her dark eyes were haunted by dark circles. The clip she had used to arrange her hair so artfully the day before was gone, and her black fell at her shoulders in mussed curls. Her outfit was the same as the day before-she hadn't bothered to change clothes.

"You went there, didn't you?" Cressida said, jittery. "Next door? I suppose someone told you about that...awful business. I never understood the family's morbid curiosity with the house."

Liz took a long sip of her water, but didn't answer. "Have you ever gone there?" Patty asked.

"Oh, I don't like ghost stories," Cressida admitted. She leaned backwards and gripped the kitchen counter. "All I can think of is how frightened that Blight woman must have been. Right before…" She turned her mouth and turned away. This innocent conversation wasn't about ghosts anymore.

"You must think we're a horrible family," Cressida said, her back still turned. "W-Wes is dead, and everyone is just roaming the house, snapping at each other. I shudder to think of whatever stories Soul told you back at school."

Liz lowered her glass back onto the table. "Believe me when I say that there are way more horrible families out there than yours," she said. "And you're underestimating Soul's capacity for forgiveness here. Did you hear about the time he was literally bisected during a mission and later became besties with the person who did it?"

Bringing up Soul's very close brush with death was not the right thing to say. Cressida whirled back around to the sisters, and though her eyes were watery and red, she spoke to them with extreme, almost angry passion. "I don't understand how you do it," she said. "I feel like death is all around me, trapping me, and I just can't break free of it. First the neighbor, then my mother-in-law, and then Wes." Cressida looked at them imploringly. "You kill people all the time. Death is your profession, your _employer_. How do you cope? I just-I'm sorry. I don't understand."

Patty blinked. For all of the violence she had seen, all the violence she had committed, she had never thought of her job description as killing _people._ Pre-K's weren't _people._ Well, they used to be people, weapons actually, which to assholes like Officer Bullshit weren't people anyway, but they weren't _people_ people anymore by the time Kid marked them for death. It wasn't like she and Liz killed witches, which according to Kid were now _people people_ too, though up until recently their team hunted witches anyway because, eh, because…

Her thoughts were muddled and her stomach felt sick. She wanted to ask Liz about this, to let her take the lead on this _weird_ conversation, but her sister has been struck silent. None of them had the answers Cressida wanted.

Patty approached the question the best way she knew. "I guess we sorta make it up!" she said with a cheery shrug. "We go out and shoot up some baddies, we suck up their souls, and then we go home and watch Kid-that's Lord Death-fold toilet paper into tiny triangles. Or we let him measure our hair to make sure they are all the same length. Mine usually needs trimming. And then we make hot cocoa, relax, and think about how the world keeps turning round and round no matter what we do, but as long as we've made it a little better, dying is ok." 

Both Liz and Cressida were taken aback by her outburst, so Patty added, "I bet Soul doesn't do it the same way we do."

Finally, _finally,_ Cressida hazarded a smile. "I suppose there's no one way of coping," she said weakly. "You girls are good friends to Soul." There was a moment of hesitation, a sigh of resolve, and a strengthening of spirit. "I found something," Cressida declared, resolute. "I'm sure it's nothing, but I didn't want to give it to the police, in case they took it the wrong way. Let me find it."

Cressida rifled through the pockets of a heavy maroon coat draped over a kitchen chair and withdrew a piece of paper. She unfolded the paper and smoothed it on the kitchen table before sliding it towards the Thompson sisters.

It was a note written in a familiar scrawl over light eraser marks and smudges. Liz read it first, and her fair eyebrows shot up to the ceiling. Patty leaned over to read the paper herself.

 _Maka,_

 _I need to talk to you about Soul, alone. Meet on the roof after dinner. 7:45?_

 _-Wes_

"That's his signature," Cressida said, pointing to the curly capital 'w.' "And this was the paper he and the boys were using to write their little Blight House clues. Wes usually did it with August, but this year he was trying to get Soul in on the fun." Two notes arranging meetings with two people at two different times and places. Could this murder be any more confusing?

Liz and Cressida stared quietly at the message, somehow enraptured by its stillness. Patty drummed her fingers on the table and blurted, "So you think Maka got this note and met Wes? And murdered him?"

Cressida pursed her lips and shook her head. "I know she did no such thing. I was trying to teach her piano. _She_ didn't leave my sight."

"You think Soul found this and went to meet Wes instead," Liz supplied. "A confrontation."

After a slow, deliberate nod, Cressida wrung her hands and twisted her wedding ring. Though Liz and Patty were sitting directly in front of her, she spoke to them with a faraway, pensive expression. "It was clear the moment we met that Soul loves her." Her voice was an urgent whisper. "So, _so_ much. He would never admit it, but he's a lot like Vic that way. August, too. They love to a fault. They care more about other people than themselves. I can't pretend to know my son as well as a mother should-it's been too long since he left-but I do know Soul wouldn't react well if he saw Wes threatening his relationship with Maka. That was my first thought when I found it, crumpled on the ground like a piece of trash by stairs to the roof. I just couldn't let the police discover it. They'd jump to the _worst_ conclusion."

Liz folded the slip of paper and stowed it in her pocket. "We'll talk to Maka and see if she knows anything about-"

She was interrupted by the sound of Victor's brusque voice admonishing Merricat for peeping around corners again. Apparently, she had been crouched in the hallway the entire time. He brought the young girl into the kitchen, a frown deeply etched into his face, and requested that Cressida fix up a cup of hot cocoa for Merricat, himself, and the Thompson sisters, if they wanted. Though he was trying to be more polite, the Evans patriarch, proud and domineering as always, sapped Cressida of her willingness to talk and the Thompsons their willingness to hang around. They declined the cocoa and left to find Maka.

The house was full of life again. They met Seth on the stairs as they climbed up and he went down, and when Patty caught his eye, his nostrils flared. Patty stifled a laugh, because if Seth had a stick up his ass, it must be at least five feet long to make him so _bothered._ When they reached the upstairs landing, both Annette and August emerged from their bedroom. August smiled at the girls as they passed, while his wife strode forward with her shoulders back and her nose in the air, unashamed and unabashed. 

Soul's bedroom sat at the end of the hall, ominous and quiet. Patty's mild soul perception could vaguely ascertain that their friends were in the room, but their activities and emotions remained opaque. Considering how often the two liked to make like bunnies, barging in was definitely a risk. Liz knocked on the door, and when there was no answer, the sisters leaned into the door to listen. There was a rustling of clothes and an occasional thump on the floor, but otherwise the room was utterly _silent._ There was no way those two could be bumping uglies, assuming they had made up after trading barbs in the kitchen.

Tucking some stray hair behind her ear, Liz took hold of the doorknob and opened the door a crack so that she could see inside. Her eyes widened. It was immediately clear that Maka and Soul weren't having sex at all. If anything, they were _arguing_.

Since they had last spoken to Soul in his bedroom, Hurricane Maka had stampeded through his room and upended all of his belongings. Even now she was sorting through clothes, whipping them out of a dresser like they offended her. Their luggage lay open on Soul's bed; alongside it piles of laundry, two bags of toiletries and various personal affects were arranged in haphazard piles. One of Maka's white button-down shirts laid on the floor, like a discarded snakeskin, its sleeve caught on the exposed nail of the annoying, squeaky floorboard.

Soul wasn't gathering their things at all. He was sitting at the empty desk on the other side of the room, arms crossed over his chest and his face arranged in an unyielding frown. Though he clearly wasn't participating, his things were still packed up all the same.

When neither of them responded to the Thompsons' presence, Patty puffed out her cheeks and stomped on the squeaky floorboard, a sharp squeal cutting through the entire room. Maka froze at the sound, turned to the sisters, and dropped the bra she was holding, which landed on her pile of sweaters with a muted thump.

Patty's fingers cracked as she clenched her fists. "Packing? Were you guys seriously thinking of _skipping town?_ When Liz n' me are here busting our asses to make sure _you aren't fucking killers?"_

"It's not what it looks like," Maka said, holding up a hand. She stepped backwards to get closer to Soul, perhaps even in an attempt to block him from view. "We aren't running away. I'm just getting everything in order for when you've wrapped up your investigation and given us the all clear."

Liz, thankfully, was just as livid as Patty. "Well the all clear ain't coming any soon, sweetie. We didn't give up Thanksgiving weekend to warp to godawful New Jersey so you can just leave us all the mess. And _you,_ " Liz jabbed a finger in Soul's direction, who slumped in his chair to avoid her scrutiny. "Your emo tempter tantrum ain't helping either."

Glowering in his chair, Soul suppressed a laugh. Maka stared at the back of his chair with smouldering eyes before turning back to the Thompson sisters.

"Listen," she said through her teeth. "I can't tiptoe anymore _._ This whole family is imploding, Soul won't talk to me, and you know what?" A few fat tears had rolled down her face, and Maka flicked them away as if they were poison. Her voice was raw and tight, like she was using all of her strength to keep it from breaking. "I'm _sad_ that this happened to Wes. I spent a week getting to know him, and then he was just _killed_ out of the blue. Say what you will about his personality quirks-I saw in his _soul_ that he was truly a good person. I know it's not the same as his family, but I'm mourning him too. I just want to go _home._ "

There it was again-that uncomfortable realization that Wes was a person, not some abstract concept or made up figure.

Patty couldn't help but mentally skirt around the tragedy of someone being alive one day and dead the next. It was one of those thoughts that made her look at herself from an outsider's eyes. Witnessing death on daily basis wasn't something normal people got used to by the time they were ten. Even Maka, the girl who killed people for a living, the girl who grew up with the sole mission to literally work for Death, couldn't handle the loss of a person she had only known for a few days.

Being immersed in the business of death didn't take the edge off after all, even for seasoned, sanctified killers like meisters and demon weapons.

But Liz and Patty weren't demon weapons at that specific moment. They were detectives, and they couldn't let Maka skip town when the amount of strange notes with Wes' signature were multiplying and the chain of events leading up to his death were tangling into a massive knot.

"How well didja know Wes?" Patty asked. She tilted her head towards Liz, who dug into her pocket for Note Numero Dos. "Cause we think he was trying to get some alone time with you." 

This revelation gave Maka pause. "What do you mean?" she asked.

Liz laid the little slip of paper on the desk, but it hardly touched the finished wood before both Maka and Soul converged on the table to see what the note said. Once Soul's eyes swept over the note, he touched Maka on the elbow, and his hand trailed down her forearm and to her hand as he mouthed something to her. With their backs turned, it was difficult to discern exactly what sort of question Soul was asking until Maka ripped her hand away and told him off.

"You're confusing me for an _Evans_ ," Maka whispered, fury rolling off her tongue with every stinging word. "I don't gossip. I don't creep around the house or arrange _secret rooftop meetings_. I expect such suspicions from your parents or aunt, but you?" She turned to the Thompsons to plead her case with them instead. "Wes never asked me to meet him. I've never seen this note in my life and I definitely never made it to the roof. This note is a half-assed attempt to make me look _involved,_ but that stops here."

Soul watched his girlfriend from the corner of his eye, brooding and weary, but he didn't offer up any comments or protests.

"We gotta follow our leads," Patty said with a shrug. "If you are right and someone planted the note to frame you up, we still need to ask around and figure out who would pull this stunt, and why."

"Patty's right," Liz said. She placed a hand on Patty's shoulder and rubbing the fabric of her jacket between her fingers. This small gesture of confidence and trust made Patty's heart swell. "You've gotta cast-iron alibi, and we have two notes from Wes arranging two different meetings. We just want to figure out what Wes might've wanted to talk to you about."

Maka threw her hands up. "Well, I have absolutely no clue."

The four friends stood in a stalemate, though by Patty's estimation they all felt far less like the _friends_ they swore to be in Spartoi. Even Liz's hand lightly perched on her shoulder felt tentative and unsure.

"I know," Soul's voice was hoarse from not speaking, but as he continued to talk the rattling in his throat gave way to clarity. "Maka, can you give the three of us a minute? Alone?"

Maka reddened immediately, and after casting an indignant look at the sisters, she clenched her fists and muttered, "For Death's sake!" She hurried from the room, and neither Soul, Liz, nor Patty spoke until they heard her incensed footfalls descend the stairs.

This was it. The secret that had caused Soul to hinder rather than help the investigation, this was the big reveal. Soul gestured for the Thompsons to sit upon his bed or at a chair, but they remained standing, defiant and hungry for knowledge. Patty couldn't help but smile at him; there was a _thrill_ in finding out what Soul had been trying to poorly to hide, a satisfaction in beating him.

"I was on the phone," Soul finally said. He let that statement hang in the air. The big secret, the thing Soul was tiptoeing around, was that. A phone call.

"What was so important about that?" Patty asked.

Soul suddenly was unable to look them in the eye. He stood from his seat and paced, wiping beneath his nose, tightening the musical strings of his own soul to keep his tone under control. "It wasn't important at all. That's the problem."

Finally he stopped. He was gathering his nerve, rubbing his palms against his jean pockets to rub the clammyness away. He was going to confess to murder. He was going to reveal his weirdest kink. He was going-

"I was going to ask Maka to marry me."

Soul spoke the words with solemnity, almost as if he had just proposed to _them_ , the two Thompsons sisters, at the insistence of someone else. Patty was not romantic by any means, but marriage had always struck her as a smooshy, giggly occasion. It just wasn't _done_ if smooches weren't part of the package, yet Soul spoke of his theoretical proposal like it was dirty.

Like Patty, Liz was stunned by Soul's admission. "Erh, congratulat-"

"Don't," Soul said bluntly. "Just don't." He saw that Liz and Patty were silently begging for answers, and with a sigh he continued. "I know what you're thinking. We're young, we're poor, and we'll probably get killed taking out a pre-k one day. But that's why I wanted to do it.

"My Gran died recently. She left me one thing-her engagement ring. Probably my family's most cherished heirloom, and she gave it to _me._ When I got the letter in the mail saying that I could claim it, I thought, why not? Why not now? Why give tragedy a chance when Maka and I could be happy right _now?_

"But I couldn't get the ring unless I came home. So I arranged this Thanksgiving get together. I reconnected with my parents. I brought Maka all the way out here. Anything to get to that happy moment. _Our_ happy moment.

"Before dinner on Saturday, I asked Wes to get it for me from the family safety deposit box to bypass my dad, who I knew wouldn't okay with me marrying so young. Instead, he ratted me out. So then I went upstairs to the study and started making phone calls, because there's no way my dad could keep something that legally belonged to me in his safety deposit box. I had just gotten in contact with the bank manager when I heard the gunshot.

"It sounds so fucking petty, explaining it to you. I had all these hopes hung on one small object, one stupid fucking plan, and then I was too ashamed to even use it to exonerate myself for Wes' murder." Soul swallowed thickly. "I think he figured out that I hadn't come home just to see him, that this weekend wasn't really about _him_. But in the end, as usual, Wes got exactly what he wanted."

His painful, personal piece was finally said. Soul fell backwards onto his creaking mattress and put his head in his hands-a frequent posture for someone who had lost so much in so little time.

Words were hard to form in Patty's mouth. She wanted to ask more, to offer some form of comfort, but she just didn't know _how._ "Do you think, are you gonna, I mean, you and Maka, do you still-"

Soul's response was a heavy sigh. "I don't know. I really don't."

Liz opened her mouth to speak, but stopped short and rubbed the back of her head. The guy was hurting, he was clearly drowning in a sea of guilt and shame, but half of this hole was dug by Soul himself. He couldn't just play the pity card, just like that. Not after running them around all day when he could have just confessed this from the very start.

Speaking few words, Soul handed his phone to Liz so she could look at his call history. Sure enough, he was on the phone during the murder with the bank manager that handled the Evans family deposit box. While the bank was closed Sundays, Soul assured Liz and Patty that a short call on Monday was all they would need to fully confirm his alibi. He was virtually in the clear.

The silence was loaded, but so was Patty. "Hey, so I get that you're balls deep in survivor's guilt and you think fate is punishing you and stuff, but being a dick to the girl you love isn't going to fix anything. Especially if you're trying to put a ring on it," she said. Patty never wanted a person so much that she'd thrust Liz aside to possess their heart, and the idea that _someone_ would ever behave that way set her blood afire.

"I know," he lamented. "I've fucked everything up."

"That's not good enough," Liz chimed in. Her hand gently squeezed Patty's shoulder. "Just saying you're a terrible brother or boyfriend or whatever isn't going to make things right. We're trying our best to get to the bottom of whatever weirdness is going on with your family, but it goes deeper than Wes' death. You have to do your part."

Soul rose from his bed and walked back over to the desk, resigned and full of melancholy. He looked at the note, at the curly 'W' of Wes' signature and the uniform print of note body, and frowned.

"You said you have two notes?" Soul asked, running his finger along the paper's edge. "And they both looked like this one?"

Liz exchanged a wary look with Patty. Neither of them wanted to break it to Soul that his older brother was trying to do the dirty with his aunt, not if they didn't have to. "Yeah, same format," Liz finally said. Thankfully, this information was enough for Soul. A peculiar look of determination flashed across his features, and with a small wave and muttered goodbye he left the room. Patty hoped that he would find Maka and patch things up with her, or maybe go downstairs and hug his mom. This family clearly had so many intimacy issues, and while a mere hug wouldn't heal their hurt, it would at least salve the wound.

Patty sniffed. She swayed right and left before swinging to the right again, leaning her entire body on Liz and wrapping her arms around her sister's torso. She immediately found herself in Liz's embrace, the single constant Patty could always turn to through cold New York nights, Kishin-cursed red skies and muggy desert summers.

Patty had done her sister wrong, wrong, _wrong._ Maybe she should have listened more when Liz was asking to turn back at the door of the Blight House. Maybe she should have ignored the siren song of that oven and its mysterious glow, forgotten the allure of that dumb Blight Ghost myth. Acting first and thinking later was second nature, and Patty never really thought much of it or cared who got hurt in the process. She should have cared more. This was _Liz._

"I'm sorry," she drawled, pressing her mouth and nose to the fabric of Liz's red sweater, just in the crook of her shoulder.

"For what?"

Patty shrugged and buried her face deeper into Liz's chest. "I dunno."

Gentle fingers stroked the back of Patty's short blonde hair. The soothing physical contact caused her to close her eyes and relax. "Okay. I know I freaked out back there, in the haunted house. That's who I am, the fraidy cat. But I shouldn't have snapped at you just because I was overwhelmed. It's not okay for anyone to speak to you like that, even me."

Somehow Liz wasn't understanding the gravity of what Patty had done, and Patty wasn't sure how to explain it, so she settled for something short. "I was a douchewaffle."

This made Liz chuckled, low and warm. "We're _both_ douchewaffles. Pigheaded douchewaffles. That's what makes us a kickass team." She let go of Patty so they could make eye contact. "We now know that Soul didn't murder Wes, so we're home free," she said. "All we have to do is dial up Kid on a mirror, and we'll be away from this horrible house and the people in it forever."

Patty opened her mouth to ask, ' _What about Wes?_ ' but closed it. It was over. They took too long investigating the murder, wasted too much time and energy on things that didn't matter, like the goddamn Blight House. Feelings of anger and disappointment washed over her, and she blinked to prevent her eyebrows from knitting into a frown. It wasn't just Wes' murder that would be left unresolved. Leaving things as they were-Soul and Maka on the verge of a breakup, Merricat and Seth irreparably distant from each other and their parents, Cressida fearing death was waiting around every corner-felt like failures, too.

Liz's smile was frozen in place. She didn't want to go either, Patty realized. She just didn't know how to get away with it now that there was nothing tethering them to this mystery.

"Welp, I guess it's time to go back into town and grab our stuff," Patty said, scuffing her shoe across the floor.

The toe of Patty's boot caught on something on the floor, and she heard both a sharp _rip_ and _thump._ Her foot had slammed into the upturned corner of the squeaky floorboard and caught on Maka's discarded shirt. The white blouse was apparently far more fragile than its wearer, and its sleeve tore. Meanwhile, the plank of wood was dislodged from the floor, releasing a small cloud of dust into the air that made Patty's throat and lungs itch and heave.

"It was- _eugh_ -an accident!"

Liz covered her mouth. "I know, I know. What I really don't get is the point of- _cough-_ having a fancy house if you're just going to let it _rot_ from the inside. Don't breathe in the mold Patty, I read that the bad stuff can give you night terrors."

It was astounding how easily Liz could transition from sister to mom in less than a sentence. Even so, Patty found it hard to believe that of all the things they've encountered on this trip, mold was the thing that would give her nightmares. Mold or no, the thing Patty kicked up by accident was vastly intriguing. The formerly squeaky board was now slightly dislodged and slanted on the ground, revealing part of a small, dank compartment hidden in the floor.

"Even Soul's room has some secrets," Liz noted. "Hey, I bet he pried it up when he was a kid so he could hide junk in there."

Now that Patty had dislodged it from where it was snugly stuck for so many years, the wide board separated from the rest of the floor easily. With the problem of Soul's alibi solved, Patty didn't really have a good _reason_ to pry up the floorboard and see what was hidden in there.

But then again, Patty didn't need a reason to do half the things she did.

Without saying anything to her sister, Patty bent down and wrenched the board from its place. Rather than admonish her, Liz picked up a flashlight she found shoved in Maka's suitcase and bent forward too to shine light on the contents of Soul's secret hiding place.

When yellow light chased away the shadows, they were confronted with the rusty and deflated face of a pig.

The Thompsons stared into the open, sagging eyes of a ghastly pig face for a moment before leaping backwards onto Soul's bed, screaming at the top of their lungs.

Patty attached herself to her sister, a barnacle clinging to the mothership, and Liz wobbled to maintain balance on the soft mattress amid her own shaking and weeping. She reached up to the ceiling to steady herself until she and Patty calmed their shrieking nerves.

"It's real," Patty whispered She repeated the revelation like a mantra under her breath before her tone hardened. Seth wasn't a deceiver. Merricat wasn't an obsessive. They were _right._ The story was _real._ Ghost hams and spooky houses weren't scary when you just _talked_ about them. She was shocked, she was scared, but Patty was also a little intrigued. The ghost she searched for so keenly wasn't myth. In fact, it looked almost soft to the touch.

Patty moved to get off the bed and reached out her hand, but she was roughly pulled back by her sister. "No Patty," Liz said. "That thing's been decomposing under there for who knows how long."

"But I wanna touch it!"

" _No one's_ gonna touch it," Liz exclaimed. They both stood on the bed, ready to pounce at a moment's notice while Liz thought of what to do next. "I'm gonna poke it," she finally said with resolve. She hopped off the bed and searched the debris of Soul and Maka's belongings before finding a coat hanger. Liz twirled it in her hand, mentally preparing herself to look a dead pig in the eyes. "Stay up there Patty. I'm going to make sure that dead thing is dead. And remember what I said about mold."

Liz put her back against the wall and slunk towards the new hole in the floor. When she was parallel with the hole, she mouthed for Patty to stay one more time before crouching and swiping the air above the gap with the coat hanger. She gathered her strength to attack the hole itself and its gross contents and stabbed the opening with the coat hanger one, two, three times.

She was being so _brave._ Anxiety and fear often held Liz back until it was too late, and Patty's heart swelled with pride to see her to throw away the coat hanger and directly reach into the hole with her bare hand. She felt around in the hole, her face transitioning from fear to disgust to confusion.

Finally, once she had grasped the pig head without gagging, Liz lifted it out of the floor. It was even droopier when left at the mercy of gravity, but it was far less scary to look at liberated from the darkness. In fact, the pig head was a friendly, vivid pink in the room's light.

"Oh my god," Liz breathed. "That's not a pig head. That's a pig...hat."

Patty squinted. "A what?"

"A _hat._ This thing is made of felt. Really old, ratty, moth eaten felt. It's got a hole in the bottom for your head, and do you see the ribbon there?"

"Oooooooh," Patty said in wonder.

It was a hat. In its prime, it might have been a magnificent one too, with its wide swooping brim imitating a smile, its thick ribbon embroidered with two large eyes, and large, pink button representing the pig's snout. The hat's top was pointed, like a gnome's, but flopped over. Two small ears were sewn into the fabric on either side-the finishing touches on a truly unique garment.

She sat on the edge of the bed, fascinated. "Sis, can I wear it?"

"Absolutely not. This thing is _filthy._ It's been collecting dust and housing a colony of bugs for who knows how long. Just look at this! _"_ With a wrinkled nose, Liz tentatively reached into the hat and pulled a long red hair out between thumb and forefinger. "Ewwww," she said, swallowing a retch. "There's even old _hair_ in here."

Liz flicked her fingers to rid herself of the offending hair. It floated to the ground, like a really long and creepy snowflake. Muttering about how she really was turning into Kid these days, Liz dropped the hat with disgust and got up to go wash her hands in Soul's bathroom.

Naturally, Patty immediately stooped over, picked the hat back up, and pulled it on her sandy head. The felt, dingy and crusted with dirt, crinkled like old newspaper as Patty fitted it to her skull. All in all, it fit quite snugly and didn't smell too moldy. Satisfied that it was on and facing in the right direction, Patty tramped over to a mirror hanging on the wall by the dresser.

Her reflection reminded Patty of Angela. Or Eruka Frog. Or both of them at once. They wore animal hats everyday, each somewhat reminiscent of their totem animal, so it made sense that this little piggy hat would cast Patty's thoughts in that direction. Although she had never actually _seen_ any normal person wear something like this before. Well, not in this dimension.

The door to the bathroom opened and Liz emerged, drying her hands. When Patty turned to her sister, Liz stopped short. "Oh _god,_ Patty!"

"This is a witch hat," Patty said blankly. "Just look. Look at it."

" _Get that flea-bitten rag off your head!"_

"It's a witch's hat." She pointed at her head with both hands. "We've been to the witch realm like half a dozen times. This is the type of hat they wear. Isn't it?"

Liz paused, and her blue eyes slowly went from Patty's chin, to her forehead, to the hat's chin, to the hat's forehead, and the very tip of its point. "I can see it," Liz relented. "But I dunno. We've never met the kind of witch that wears a pig…"

They both stared at each other. Tamsin Blight and her abnormally large, prize-winning pigs. Tamsin Blight and her glowing oven. Her creepy house. Her vanishing pig's head.

There was no Blight Ghost. There was a Blight _Witch_.

Liz took a deep breath and rubbed her left temple. "Okay. Let's pretend that the dead, murdered neighbor from twenty odd years ago was really a witch and the vision or whatever we saw was her magic. How could all that creepy shit happen in her house if she's dead? I'm pretty sure witches can't conjure things from beyond the grave."

"Maybe she's not dead." Patty said. Theories began to roll off her tongue. "Maybe she faked it, like Medusa did. Maybe she's still alive. Maybe Wes found out and she offed him. Oh! The Blight House was the last place he was before heading home and getting murdered. She might have put a spell on him."

Her sister thought about this for a moment. "So here's where we are," Liz said. She reached over and plucked the hat off Patty's hand, holding it like a stalk of vegetables she had just pulled out of the ground. "Either we're reaching like _crazy,_ or there's a witch on the loose who already killed somebody. We don't have any evidence apart from this hideous craft project. Hell, we don't even have a suspect. Somehow, I don't think the police will believe us if we say the dead neighbor did it and hand them _this_." She shook the hat, emitting a another small cloud of dust.

"We have the hair!" Patty pointed out. "That's DNA. You know, Annette has red hair. And a motive. And opportunity, since no one actually saw her chilling in that bathtub. What are the chances of us finding a redhead who fits the bill so damn closely?"

Liz thought for a moment. "About the same as meeting a family full of albino dudes. I dunno, this all sounds more like a _story_ than the truth. It just falls into place too easily. But there's really only one way to know."

Patty nodded; she knew the hair was meaningless. You couldn't find a witch with DNA. If she was cloaked in soul protect, the only way to expose her was to see through her shield with soul perception-and there was only one person on the planet who could do that, and she was somewhere stewing downstairs.

With the swine hat still grasped in Liz's fists, the Thompsons rushed back to the main floor, thundering down the stairs in the hopes of catching Maka quickly and in a better mood. A small rumble of conversation drew them to the kitchen, where they saw Maka sitting with Victor and Cressida, an empty cup of hot cocoa sitting beside her.

While the married couple was speaking lowly about something, allowing only words like "mortgage" and "resell value" to escape their muted conversation, Maka sat with her chin propped up in her hand, bored and almost sleepy.

"Psst Maka!" Hearing her name, Maka drowsily tilted her head in their direction. "We have something urgent to talk about," Patty whispered. "Good news is that Soul is cleared. Not guilty. Bad news is that we need you to find the real killer. Wanna chat?"

After nodding and rising rose slowly from her seat, Maka lurched to the side and gripped the kitchen counter for support. Her green eyes were glassy and unfocused. Alarmed, Cressida rose from her seat and said her name, but Maka did not hear. Her eyes rolled backwards, and Maka collapsed like a lifeless marionette onto the linoleum tile.


	5. Chapter 5

When Maka hit the ground, immobile and cold, Liz and Patty stared in shock while Soul's parents jumped to their feet. Liz dropped the ratty pig hat, knelt on the ground, and rolled Maka over to feel her pulse and check her breathing. Her chest was still falling up and down, her heart was still chugging along, but her eyes were half open and her mouth slack. Liz gently brushed away Maka's blonde hair, and those green eyes slowly rolled towards her. She has been unconscious for only a moment, yet even as she roused from her stupor Maka remained weak.

This wasn't some random fainting spell-Maka didn't _have_ those. Someone did this.

At the table, Cressida was staring in horror with her hands over her mouth while her husband studied Liz's actions, thinking and worrying. A hodge podge of ceramic mugs sat on the table, most of them empty.

"She's breathing, she's awake," Liz said. "I think she's having a reaction to something. What did she last eat or drink?"

Cressida gasped. "The cocoa! Oh Vic, I've done it, I've poisoned Maka!"

"Of course you didn't," Victor said, though he eyed all the mugs with suspicion.

Liz didn't believe Soul's mom would intentionally harm Maka, but while Cressida had probably never poisoned anyone in her life, it was never too late for a first time. "Patty, find Maka's cup," she said to her sister. Patty started whispering to Cressida and examining mugs. To Victor, Liz said, "What were you all doing before we arrived?"

"We just finished having a family meeting," he said. "While you were speaking to Soul, I suppose, the rest of the family discussed selling the house. Too many memories and ghosts, you see."

Liz looked back down at Maka, who had now squeezed her eyes tight and groaned. "Didn't Soul come down here? I thought he went to find Maka."

Victor shrugged. "We haven't seen him, and she was with us the whole time." This didn't make sense. If Soul didn't come straight downstairs to makeup with his meister, where on earth _did_ he go?

Pondering Soul's motives and location would have to wait. Patty picked up a forest green mug with a red trim off the table. "This one was Maka's," she said. "What's this white stuff?"

Liz took the cup from her and ran her finger along the base. Sure enough, Maka's cocoa left behind a film of white powder. Someone had spiked her cocoa with a lot of drugs and shoved it in her face before it could even dissolve properly.

Looking at the Evanses, Liz said, "This isn't sugar."

While his wife didn't quite catch the implication, Victor did. "That is _preposterous!"_ he exclaimed. "You think someone in the family drugged Maka? With what? We don't even have drugs in the house!"

Liz thought for a moment, her memory stirring. There were drugs in the house-loads of them, if August's nightstand was any indication. Wasn't there a Xanax in amongst those bottles? She couldn't remember who they were prescribed to, but it probably didn't matter. They weren't exactly locked up, and anyone in the family could have swiped them.

Cressida shot a look at her husband before saying, "Well, Annette did help me p-pass them out-"

She was cut off when Victor shoved her to the side, hurried into the hall and began yelling to the whole house. "August! Annette! Bah, this house is too _bloody big."_ Seth emerged on the upstairs landing, and Merricat emerged from the downstairs parlor, where she was surely creeping on her phone. "You!" Victor ordered, pointing his thick finger at Seth. "Go find Soul. Something dreadful has happened to Maka. Merricat, find your mom and dad. We need them here." The two siblings scampered off.

Back in the kitchen, Maka was still on the tiled floor, sitting up against the wall. Soul's mother brought in pillows for her and a blanket, but she seemed too frazzled to attempt to pick her up or carry her somewhere more comfortable. The meister was definitely conscious now, though she had hard time holding up her head. When she saw the Thompson sisters, Maka gripped the wall like her life depended on it and attempted to stand.

Liz knelt just in time to catch Maka and lay her back down. "Maka, hon, you gotta keep still," she cautioned. "Just wait until the paramedics get here. We're looking for Soul right now-everything will be ok."

The mention of Soul's name caused Maka to stir. Her emerald irises were glazed over as she stared straight ahead with immense concentration. _Soul perception,_ Liz realized. Her eyes darted to the ceiling, and Maka began to mumble Soul's name.

"She's confused. I doubt she'll be able to say much," Victor said with a furrowed brow. He had his cellphone out to call the paramedics. "You should get in touch with Maka's parents."

Liz blinked. "Wh-what?"

"Her _parents_. I know you don't do it this way at _Shibusen,_ but here when a young girl collapses you tell her damn parents. Off you go-to the mirror!"

Contact Maka's parents through the mirror, of course! She gently lowered Maka to the ground and scrambled to her feet. Grabbing Patty's wrist in one hand and that damned hat in the other, they rushed out of the room to the largest mirror they knew of in the house.

Victor's maniacal covering of the mirrors had definitely started in the parlor, the room where Spirit had first called the house. It felt like eons had passed since that brief interruption. When they got inside, Liz leapt onto the couch and ripped a black shroud off the mirror, which billowed in the air as it floated to the ground. She cupped her hands over her mouth, drew close to the glass, and slowly exhaled. The mirror surface fogged, and she froze. Liz didn't know the right number for contacting either of Maka's parents. She didn't even know if they could be contacted via mirror like Kid-

Of course! The three of them were all in the witch's realm, together! Before the condensation faded away, Liz used her forefinger to write in Kid's personal number.

 _8-888-8888_

Kid didn't carry a physical mirror around with him; he conjured one using the same grim-reaper magic he used to summon Beezlebub or his official Lord Death regalia. Though the 42-42-564 number was considered a classic at Shibusen, Kid preferred to keep that one reserved for the Death Room, that way his own number could better adhere to his tastes.

The mirror surface glowed blue, but Kid didn't immediately appear. _Come on,_ Liz thought. _Pick up, pick up!_

Finally, Kid's face blipped onto the screen. He was wearing his mask, which he quickly slid away from his face. "Girls!" he said happily. "I was wondering when I would hear from you. How are things in, er, where are you? Connecticut?"

Patty leapt on the couch and delivered an update without stopping to breathe. "The good news is that we're sure Soul didn't kill anyone, but the bad news is that Maka's been roofied and we don't know where Soul went, and the even worse news is that this whole thing was probably done by a witch-" She stopped to grab the hat out of Liz's hand a wave the tattered thing in front of the mirror, "-but we can't _find_ the witch because the only one with soul perception is _drugged_ because the person who normally protects her is _missing._ And that's what's going on here, what's up with you?"

Kid blinked and nodded slowly as he drank in the information. "So things have escalated," he said. "And there might be a witch involved? How unexpected. I doubt Maba would like to hear about _that._ "

"Could you find Maka's folks for us?" Liz asked. "I'm pretty sure they're her emergency contact."

Kid paused and closed his eyes, and his lips twitched as he mumbled Spirit's name. Only a few seconds passed before Kid's eyes flew back open. "I've found Spirit. I believe his ex-wife has already left the witch realm," Kid said. "He isn't far. Would you like me to take you-"

"Yes!"

Their meister turned on his heel to walk to wherever his soul perception pinpointed Spirit, but he remained squarely in the middle of the frame. The conjured mirror dutily followed him through an open hall-the very same courtroom where he had begged the witches to join forces before the Battle of the Moon. There was no ongoing trial occurring in the hall, so witches milled in and out, perhaps waiting for the next judicial spectacle to get started. The throng of witches parted at Kid's approach like the Red Sea, but the grim reaper paid them no mind.

The same could not be said for Liz and Patty on the other side of the mirror glass. They couldn't tear their eyes away from the _hats._ Hats with points that curled into a swan or peacock's long neck. Hats with brims covered with feathers, hats with mammal faces creased into the fabric, eyes embroidered into the ribbons. To her right, Liz saw her sister look between the mirror and the ratty thing in her hands.

That witch theory was just one of Patty's off-the-wall ideas, but she couldn't deny that all of the pieces were falling into place rather easily.

"I'm almost there," Kid said without looking into the mirror. "He's at a bar, you see."

Liz swallowed the urge to demand that Kid hurry the hell up and find Spirit.

Patty, once again wearing the hat, spoke up. "Kiddo, you've met a lot of witches in the past week. Seen any pig-themed ones?"

"I've only heard of one, but she's been dead for decades." Kid stopped to speak with a tall, burly man wearing a wolf cowl-probably a bouncer. He quietly requested an audience with his colleague, and the guard nodded and stood aside. "It's interesting that you mention her," Kid added as he stepped through the doorway, floating mirror bobbing along after him. "With Spirit's trial and all, I feel like I've been hearing Circe Swine's name everywhere I turn."

There was a frantic clearing of the throat behind the two girls. When Liz turned and saw Soul's mother, bouncing between the balls of her feet with urgency, her first thought was that Cressida was upset the Thompson sisters were standing on her couch cushions in their muddy boots. This was unfair, because not once in her interactions with the woman had Cressida shown more concern for her upholstery than for the people in her house.

"There was a noise upstairs," Cressida said, pointing upward. "I don't know, with everything that's going on-"

A loud crash sounded somewhere among the upstairs bedrooms, and they heard Merricat's little voice shriek.

To Kid in the mirror, Liz said, "Tell Spirit to get his ass to New Jersey. We'll be in touch later." As always with this brand of magic, the connection between the two mirrors broke the moment it became clear that the conversation was over. Following Cressida, they dashed out of the parlor, weaved around Victor, who was looking out for the paramedics, and headed into to the base of the stairs.

Seth hurried down the hall, holding Merricat on his hip as if she were only a toddler. He was flushed red from the sudden exertion, and he skipped every other step down the stairs in his haste. Liz hadn't realized skinny Seth was physically capable of carrying a ten year-old like that, or that he would ever do so with a sister he described as a gnat.

When Seth saw them, his red eyes seemed to crackle with adrenaline. "You have to go upstairs," he said. "Soul's gone _mad."_

While Liz looked up the stairs and deliberated what to do, Patty scratched her head and asked, "Mad _how?_ That's a really big umbrella."

"Like murder mad. He ransacked my parents room and started raving about _notes_ and large _knives_ started sprouting out of him, and that asshole didn't even _care_ that Merricat was within slicing distance. My dad's an invalid and my mom's in high-heeled shoes. You have to stop him before he hurts one of them."

The word 'notes' made Liz's attention snap away from the stairs and back to Seth. "Slow down. What notes?"

As Merricat buried her face in her older brother's neck, Seth's expression grew irritated. "Do I have to explain _everything?_ The Blight House notes!" Seth said. "The ones Soul and Wes wrote together for our trip. He kept asking my mom and dad to look at them and _explain, explain, explain._ But who cares about a couple slips of paper? You have to go! Now!"

There was another crashing sound upstairs. Nodding once to Seth, Liz stormed up the stairs with Patty at her heels.

Annette and August's room was empty only in that there were no people in it. The already messy room had been absolutely turned upside down. Every drawer had been pulled out and emptied onto the floor, and the bed had been stripped of its sheets. August's nightstand was an explosion of orange bottles, and identical slips of paper were scattered throughout.

Liz bent over and picked a few of them up.

 _Maka,_

 _I need to talk to you abou-_

 _Maka,_

 _I need to talk to you about Soul. Meet me-_

 _I'd like to see you again tonight_

 _Sincerely, Wes_

 _Wes Wes Wes Wes_

"Whoah," Liz said. "These are like the same note...over and over."

But they weren't the same. The handwriting differed between the versions, specifically the distinct curly-cue of Wes' signature. They looked like drafts for the thing that was eventually found by Cressida crumpled on the ground. Like the writer was...practicing.

"Wes didn't write these," she said. "He wouldn't have to rehearse his own signature. Holy shit Patty, those note things were _planted."_

Patty was holding some notes she found on the other side of the room. "They're awesome forgeries," she said, impressed. "But how does this figure into Wes' murder?"

"I think we need to take Wes _out_ of the equation," Liz said. Her brain was running a mile a minute, and the horrific truth dawned on her in a flood. "These notes aren't for him. They're for _Maka._ Holy shit Patty, it's _bait."_

Patty squinted at the note. "What do you mean?"

"We've been assuming Wes was trying to arrange a meeting with Maka to talk about Soul's proposal, but that can't be true if someone else wrote all these. Someone else was trying to lure her to the roof. She was the target, not him."

Her sister pressed her lips into a fine line, concentrating, before muttering, "That fucker."

Liz knew exactly whom she meant.

Wes's greatest talent wasn't the violin. It was putting himself at the center of _everything._ This dude who they had never met was so adept at convincing the world that he was the sun and all else were dull planets and stars that he even convinced them _,_ after death, that this tragedy was solely about himself _._ This whole time, they hadn't even considered that Wes wasn't the murderer's true target, that maybe Wes walked into a trap thatwasn't for him.

She could imagine it so easily now-Wes gathering up all the little clues he and his family wrote for the Blight House trip, accidentally grabbing one of the forgeries, and then happening upon it after he had already left. He must have been extremely suspicious and concerned to come back so quickly and head straight to the roof, emerging from the stairwell for a brief second before the murderer launched their ambush.

Maka's poisoning was sloppily executed because it was a last-ditch effort to finish the job.

Soul must've known. He must've seen the note to Maka when the Thompsons confronted him and realized it didn't sound like something Wes would say, or that it didn't quite look like his handwriting. Put it together that maybe his brother died while indirectly protecting his meister. Because he was always a slacker in school, it was easy to forget that Soul was really as sharp in human form as he was as a scythe. But instead of sharing what he knew or suspected, Soul waited until he could look for the evidence and take things into his own hands.

Shit-colored death on a stick. Separating Soul and Maka from each other did terrible things to their judgement and decision-making.

Patty stacked several slips of paper on a clean portion of the nightstand. "I bet it was Annette," she said. "That witch in wife's clothing used them to cover her own ass and get Maka alone. Because Maka could see through her soul perception."

To Liz, it sounded like Patty was getting carried away again. If Annette was a witch and Maka had figured it out, she certainly wouldn't have done anything about it. There hadn't been an open season on witches in years. Hashing out the new treaty to replace the old one Kid and Maba cobbled together in literal minutes before jetting to the moon was a testament to that.

The unrhythmic clattering of high heels echoed down the hall, and Annette burst into the room. . "Thank god!" she gasped. "Soul has chased August to the roof." She pointed in the direction of the hall that led to the empty, musty west wing of the house.

Liz and Patty both lurched forward in a false start, but remained rooted where they stood.

"What are you waiting for? My husband is going to get killed by that lunatic deathscythe!" Annette demanded. "Why are you staring at me?"

Though she hadn't truly believed Patty's theory, Liz couldn't take her eyes off the woman. Turning your back on someone with immense magical skill was a death wish, like a gazelle opening itself up to attack from a lioness. She kept looking between them, her composure crumbling with every passing second.

" _For God's sake!_ " Annette finally said, hurrying from the room and back down the stairs.

Both of the Thompson sisters exhaled heavily. If Annette was a witch like Patty suspected, she was a good actor. Still, it didn't take a lot of prodding when they last interrogated her to unravel her alibi. Her complicity was something they could return to later.

They tried to make up for lost time by taking the secret passageway between the study and the west wing, only to find the book case covering the entrance pushed over, blocking the way. _Balls!_ Liz surmised that August had crammed the passage so that he couldn't be followed. The sisters simply didn't have the time to move the wreckage. They sped back into the main hallway, Patty taking the lead and sprinting down hall as she retraced her steps to the roof stairwell.

Liz huffed behind her. She wasn't built for _running._ She was built to be carried around by Kid in weapon form as he scooted forward on Beezlebub. Still, she stubbornly hurried forward with single-minded focus.

Until Patty stopped short in the hall and Liz ran into her headfirst.

Patty really knew how to plant; she stood steadfast when her sister bumped into her, seemingly unaffected by the impact. Once Liz peeled herself off her sister's backside, she took a long look at what Patty was staring at.

It was just a picture-er, well, many pictures. Like a collage. The photos were of a couple of guys, probably around their age, hanging out on what was clearly the Evans property. _Soul and Wes? Nick and Seth?_ No, she had met three out of four of this generation of Evans boys, and none of them looked like these guys. Didn't someone say that Soul's dad and uncle grew up in this house too? It wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for old pictures of them to be kept around the house.

"I get it now," Patty mumbled to herself. "Why Wes died. _I get it."_

Frowning, Liz glanced at the collage again. _What? What does she get? Huh?_

"You're gonna have to fill me in later," Liz said. "We don't have time to look at pictures!" Patty nodded, and they both took off.

The stairwell door was nothing but splinters. A few strange gashes where Soul's blades lashed out lined the wall, and one step had even collapsed in his enraged scramble. The railing was reduced to scraps of wood laying haphazardly on the steps. An emotionally compromised Deathscythe had definitely gone through here.

The wreckage scared Liz, not because she was afraid to climb up an unstable set of stairs, but because she couldn't imagine what inside Soul must have _broken_ to trigger this. His mom's words about Soul caring more about other people than himself were far more apt than any of them had realized.

As terrible as they looked, the stairs weren't a tough obstacle to negotiate. They climbed onto the roof terrace, which was just as incredibly small as Patty had described. Despite the small amount of space available on the roof, Soul and August were nowhere to be seen.

The storm brewing in the distance when Liz had last been outdoors had rumbled even closer to the house, prematurely darkening the sky and releasing a spittle of rain. The raindrops were thin, but they felt like cold needle pricks on her exposed cheeks and left behind an uncanny mist on the roof.

And then, they saw him. Soul had climbed off the patio and onto the house itself. He was looking around, possibly for August, possibly for a way down, and finally turned to face the sisters staring at him from down below. The faint glow of his blood red eyes penetrated the dark.

Liz was immediately chilled, but not by the rain.

"Soul!" Patty called. "Get your ass down!"

He didn't move his ass anywhere. "Good, you guys are here," Soul said. Though a hint of smile grew on his face, it didn't inspire any confidence. "With your help, catching this bastard will go way faster."

The Thompsons glanced at each other with mirrored alarm. Patty gave Liz a leg up, and waited for her sister to help her next. The shingles were now slick from rain, and even in her boots, Liz wobbled as she got her footing and pulled Patty onto the roof.

"So, you're chasing your uncle on purpose?" Liz asked, raising her voice. They slowly moved forward, diverging slightly as they drew closer to Soul. Maybe if they got close enough, they could just surround him, calm him down before he did something rash.

"Yeah, he somehow scrambled up here to get away. I didn't think he had it in him, with his health and all. I suppose anyone can surprise you." There was something cavalier in the way he spoke of August. It was really hard to interpret whether the underlying emotion beneath his words contained any violence.

There was probably one person who could cut through the ambiguity of Soul Eater Evans, and she was hopped up on Xanax.

Perhaps Maka could help them talk Soul down after all. "Hey, we can take it from here," Liz said. She took two steps forward and glanced at Patty through her periphery. "The person who really needs you right now is Maka. Honestly, she's not doing so hot. You have to go to her."

Soul immediately adopted his poker face. "Why? Has something happened to her?"

"She's okay!" Liz assured him. Having seen the damage he had inflicted on the stairs, she needed to get him away from August before he did something rash. "It looks like someone spiked her cocoa with Xanax, but it's nothing she hasn't recovered from before. The ambulance is already on its way, so why don't you go hold her hand until it arrives?"

The deathscythe looked back towards the patio and the door, but his body flinched away. Soul clearly wanted to rush to her side, to comfort and protect Maka in her weak state, but something kept him rooted where he stood. His grief had done more than blind him. It was overpowering his very self and replacing it with fear.

"Whose Xanax was it?" He asked with a tight jaw. "August's, right? Well this just proves it.

"Did you know I spent two hours with Wes writing those little notes for the Blight house trip? I sort of memorized his godawful signature, but even I can't reproduce it. I can't believe we were all so easily fooled...the whole family…" Soul screwed up his face as his mask crumbled. "This _whole_ time I thought Uncle Auggie was _mourning,_ like the rest of us. Hell, he hugged me when Wes was getting put in a body bag _._ He told me that no matter what, the family would always stick together in times of crisis, but he'd cut down any of us to get to his _real_ target. It just makes me so fucking _sick._ The two people I care about most... _"_

"He's not going to get away with what he's done, Soul," Liz said, throwing every ounce of her being into remaining as calm and composed as possible. "You're upset. You're grieving. That's okay. But catching the bad guy isn't your job."

"But it _is_ ," Soul persisted. "It's what I'm _for._ It's what _we're_ for. Don't tell me this asshole doesn't deserve it. If his name's not on Lord Death's list now, it's gonna be. What kind of weapons would we be if we let a murderer like that slide?"

This was going in a worrisome direction. Patty then said, "He's not a pre-K. He's just a sad little man." She spoke with so much certainty. Whatever revelation she had gleaned from a single photo collage had left her incredibly confident.

But confidence wasn't enough to convince Soul. "It doesn't matter," he said. "It's my job to protect Maka, and if this bastard has it out for her, it's my duty to take him out. So, are you guys going to help or what?"

Liz became extremely aware of the fact that Soul was a deathscythe, a very powerful one at that. If he was going to charge in and harvest August's soul, she wasn't equipped to stop him alone. Their saving grace, if she and Patty were to physically confront Soul on the rooftop, was the fact that Soul was unused to fighting without Maka's guidance. Still, that wasn't a risk Liz wanted to take, especially with her _sister_. She would rather push Patty off the roof, where she would get bruised but not killed, than attack a murderous deathscythe.

She felt a small, subtle twang in Patty's wavelength. Though Liz did not look in her sister's direction or speak, she knew that Patty had a plan, or at least an inkling of one.

Or perhaps, it was time to stop assuming Patty's involvement was her decision. The only reason the visit at the Blight House turned into such a clusterfuck was because Liz let her fears seize her heart and decided it was time for her _and_ Patty to leave. She couldn't let her doubts and fears cloud her judgement. She had to trust her sister absolutely and step back while Patty took the lead.

"I won't help you do this," Liz said. She closed her eyes and felt her physical being ebb away. Her soul wavelength compressed and shifted into a pistol, and Patty caught her in the air. A low hum of resonance immediately sparked between them.

"But I'll do it," Patty said, with a predatory glint in her eye.

Soul grinned. "Of the two of you, I knew you'd be the one on board, Patty."

He held up his right hand for a high five. Patty stared at it for a moment, and Liz swore that she was just going to leave him hanging. She raised her left hand, but before their palms could meet, she grabbed his wrist and yanked Soul towards her. When he stumbled forward, Patty thrust her right hand and pummeled Soul in the face with the butt of Liz's gun. She retracted it sharply and hit him again square in the chest, and then kneed him in the crotch. Liz could feel specks of blood splatter onto the grooves of her weapon form.

With her grip still tight around Soul's wrist, Patty whirled around and bent low. She used her lower center of gravity to hurl the much taller deathscythe over her shoulder. The sudden _CRACK_ of Soul's body impacting the pavement sent a shiver down both sisters' wavelengths. The shingles, obviously ravaged by the same mold beneath the house's floorboards, collapsed beneath Soul, causing him to fall through the roof and into the house.

Patty leaned over the hole and scratched her head. "That was an accident," she mumbled.

Beneath them, they heard Soul groan. He wasn't hurt, but he was definitely out of the way.

Liz transformed and propped her arm on Patty's shoulder. "I don't think the Evanses are going to care if there is a hole in their roof," she said. "They're selling the place, afterall. They would have had to renovate it anyway." She ruffled Patty's hair.

They found August sitting at the edge of the roof, an old rifle laying across his knees, gazing below in despair. He seemed undecided whether he should turn the gun on himself or leap below, or perhaps a combination of the two. The man looked up and stared in the direction of the Blight House, transfixed. Like he was searching for a mirage within the mists.

Liz tapped his shoulder and extended a hand. "It's time to come clean."


	6. Chapter 6

Patty retraced her steps through the upper west wing of the house and scanned the wall. When she found the picture she was looking for, the collage of old-timey photos with wiped down glass, her eyes darted from face to face, scene to scene, until she spotted it. _Bingo._

Since she didn't need the entire collage, Patty took the picture frame off the wall and laid it glass-down on the ground. She ripped at the back, removing the brass fastenings and stock paper holding the pictures secure in the frame, and then _shook_ the entire thing _._ Photographs fluttered out of the casing and to the ground like dead leaves, and when she was sure that there was nothing left, Patty dropped the picture frame and glass so she could sift through the pile for the image she was looking for.

Finally, she found it-a candid polaroid of a young man with a dopey smile making small talk with a beautiful redhead in her garden. The Blight House was looming behind her in its former glory, and though the young man's face was slightly turned away from the camera, she no longer had any doubt of who it was.

As for the ginger, she was easily recognizable as the same woman whose portrait hung in the Blight House-Tamsin Blight, or so she was called. Patty hadn't known what she was looking at when she had first glanced at the collage in passing earlier that afternoon. Now the image was too significant to leave behind.

A small note was written on the bottom, but it was too faded to read. Patty didn't mind that, though. There were some mysteries about this house, about the Evans family, that weren't her place to solve.

She slipped the photograph into her pocket and skipped back down the main hall, where all the fun was still happening.

The police descended upon the Evans mansion for the second time in as many days, but this time several three-star meisters and witch guards were waiting for them. Liz had taken care of that via mirror when she called Kid to confirm a few theories and identities. The paramedics, too, had quickly come and gone. The rain was nothing but thin spittle as an ambulance peeled out of the drive to carry Maka to the nearest hospital, where she would undoubtedly meet her parents (or at least Spirit) before getting her stomach pumped.

August was locked in Victor's downstairs office with Shibusen security, where he couldn't escape. Soul was awake in his room, also monitored by Shibusen security and his parents. Victor and Cressida were shocked and confused when Patty returned from the roof with their son unconscious and draped over her shoulder. They were so worried about him that they hadn't asked why August was trailing behind them with his hands in full view, burdened with guilt.

It made Patty sad, thinking of Victor and August. What was grouchy Vic going to do when he finally heard the truth?

Liz was waiting for her in the front hallway, where she was warily looking out the window at the police slowly gathering at the property. Patty couldn't help but notice how at ease Liz appeared in the opulent mansion. When you spend an entire day unraveling a family's secrets and running amok in their home, it was hard to remain intimidated.

She cast a cursory glance towards Patty before saying, "Just finished up with Kid. You were right. We just need to make _him_ say it."

A police car with shimmering lights parked in front of the house, and Officer Bollero emerged from the passenger seat. Both sisters groaned.

"This bitch again," Patty murmured. "Why can't she just go home and let us take care of everything?"

"Relax Patty," Liz said, confidence shining through her smile. "We'll let the police know who is calling the shots here."

Officer Bollero was stuck in a permanent grimace. Various officers milled around in the front garden, uncertain what they were supposed to do since Shibusen had already arrived, but Bollero had no qualms with storming inside. Her progress was halted by the presence of two blonde demon weapons grinning like cheshire cats.

"It's high time you arrived," Liz said with her hands on her hips. "Now that the local police have _deigned_ to get their asses over here, maybe you can actually be useful."

The policewoman gave them both a curt nod. "Your assistance was not asked for, but it is appreciated. If you and your, er, _associates_ could clear out, we'll take it from here."

"Not so fast!" Patty said, holding up a hand. "The perp tried to murder a Shibusen meister. This is _our_ investigation now. You've been out-investigated by girls in belly shirts."

Liz leaned on her forearm on top of her sister's head. "The two of us amateur Nancy Drews figured out everything _without_ your help, and we're going to see it to the end while you wait out here, handcuffs at the ready. Got it?"

Bollero narrowed her eyes into thin slits, but she did not challenge them. With her shoulders back and head high, the officer stalked out of the house to join the other police officers. She looked back at the sisters, and her gaze was met with Liz's stony stare and both of Patty's middle fingers. Well, that settled _that._

They headed to the office, where August was waiting for them. Patty came prepared with the photo and the old pig hat. Liz, meanwhile, had collected all of the damn notes involved in this web of mystery-a feat that included breaking into a vehicle for the first time since they lived in Brooklyn. Their pockets and hands were full with the only real physical evidence they had, but a couple pieces of paper and an old hat weren't going to convince anyone that August was a murderer. That would require some creative interrogation.

They paused before the door. Patty could tell through the casual intertwining of their wavelengths that Liz was feeling the same apprehension about shutting the door on this case once and for all. What if they were wrong? What if they just weren't cut out for this?

"Do you want to take the lead here?" Liz asked.

"Nah," Patty responded. "We work better as a team."

"Then let's bag this sucker so we can go home. I have a trashy novel with my name on it."

The sisters never had any reason to go snooping inside Victor's office during the investigation. It smelled of burnt cigars, and the interior was illuminated only by a single lamp on the thick, wooden desk.

Somehow, it was in this dim light that Patty saw exactly how similar August looked to his brother. Take away some wrinkles, cut his hair, and add a mustache, and they could be twins. When he noticed their arrival, August looked up sleepily. It was time to begin.

First, Patty dropped the old hat onto the table. Recognition flickered in August's eyes, but he said nothing. "We found this in your old room," she said. "The one Soul took over when he was a kid. You put it in the floorboards." She wasn't asking him questions. Just stating the facts. "Did you do that before you left home or after?"

August swallowed. "You know."

"Know what? That you were canoodling Tamsin Blight? Who was actually born a witch named Circe Swine?"

"Who?" he asked, feigning ignorance. As if he did not know. As if August hadn't found a souvenir of his dead ladyfriend and hidden it somewhere in his childhood room.

Liz sat on the edge of the desk. Thanks to her long torso and neck, she towered over the sitting August. "Listen," Liz said. "I was just talking to Lord Death, and he had a lot to say about Circe Swine. So I'm going to give you a history lesson to jog your memory. She first started appearing in human history in ancient Greece, where she had a penchant for transforming the people she didn't like into animals-pigs, mostly. Eight hundred years ago, when Shibusen started warring with the witches, Ms. Swine went underground. Took a lot of different names, lived all over Europe. By the time she made it to the states, she had a new name and reputation. And no one suspected a damn thing, even when the locals started turning up in her pig pen without knowing how they got there."

August reached out his hand to touch the moth-eaten felt of the pig hat's ear, and he chuckled. "Circe always had a droll sense of humor."

Now Patty placed the photograph on the table and slid it forward. His attention snapped to it instantly, though he still kept his hand on the hat.

"Who took this?" she asked.

August's eyes remained trained on the dead witch's smile, preserved for all time in a candid picture. "Victor did. I had just returned from my first year at college, got a bit lost in the woods. Vic found me and took the picture before realizing who it was. He spent the rest of the day telling me to stay away from the Blight girl. I just made sure he never found out."

One piece of the puzzle-Tamsin Blight's true identity and August's connection to her-was secure. A small vibration in Liz's wavelength signalled that it was time for phase two.

"When Maka's father called here, he said he recognized your brother," Liz said. "But it was you he thought he recognized. Easy mistake to make, if you haven't seen someone in decades. I'm sure if we reintroduced you two, it would improve his memory."

The room was silent for a long moment. "I hardly remember him myself," August said. "It was a blur...everything fell apart on the night when...the night..."

"The night Spirit and his ex-wife showed up at the Blight House," Liz finished. "The night they showed up to collect their last soul before Spirit could become a deathscythe."

Thinking back, it was so clear that the Blight House wasn't attacked by any run-of-the-mill burglar or murderer. The gashes gouged into the walls, the portion of the house that had been cleanly cut away, these were the signs of a scythe slicing a warpath during a fight to the death. From Kid's account, Circe Swine had not gone down easy.

But August was there too, though he had not gotten injured in the crossfire. In his escape from the house and the love story that was collapsing upon its own foundations, carrying only a single memento to later cry over, August had glimpsed Circe's attacker.

"I didn't fully understand what had happened until a few weeks later," August explained. "The new Deathscythe's coronation was in the papers. I could only grieve in secret, but I never forgot the name."

"And you never heard of it again," Patty said, "until Maka showed up. This was your shot at revenge."

Now August's eyes met Patty's with burning defiance. "It was a slap in the face, her waltzing into our family, regaling us with stories of murdering witches. Like it was normal, like it was _justice._ Especially when I learned of Soul's ill-thought proposal. I could bury Circe alone. I could shoulder that burden. But I couldn't welcome her killers into my family.

"I knew who I was dealing with. I had to plan it in a way that I could strike first before she could retaliate. Wes and Soul finished up writing the clues for our annual tour of the Blight House. I took some of the paper and forged a note to lure my wife away, and then another to lure Maka to the roof. I found a hunting rifle from my college days and laid the trap. I waited for what felt like years. I thought she wouldn't come at all."

His voice trailed off, and he tore his eyes away from Patty. "She didn't fall for the trap because she never got the note. Wes did," Patty said flatly.

Her stomach churned at the sight of him, so she rose from her seat and walked away from August and towards the window. Wes died for nothing. Soul lost his older brother for _nothing._ An old man's half-baked attempt at revenge had hurt so many people, and it would continue to hurt long after he was thrown in jail. The Evanses were a dysfunctional bunch, but they didn't deserve this. It was so _unfair._

The only upside to this whole damn mess was that he hadn't succeeding in hurting Maka.

"They say that time heals all," she heard August say behind her. "But that's a lie. When you really, truly love somebody, the pain never goes away. A broken heart is like shard of glass, burying itself deep and bleeding you out one drop at a time."

"Poetic," Liz murmured.

"Witches are chaos. It's in their nature. Your lot are the ones who made the leap between chaos and danger. Tamsin-Circe-she had her fun, but she never killed anyone in her entire lifetime. She didn't possess that brand of evil inside her."

"But you do," Patty responded, watching rain droplets leave long, watery trails on the window pane.

She felt a hand on her right shoulder. Liz, too, had abandoned August to wallow in his guilt at the desk. Patty leaned into her touch. "We did it," she said. "Let's tell Officer Bollero to take it from here. I don't see any point in sticking around."

"Would you like to collect Wes' soul?" August asked with a gravelly, almost concerned voice. "Don't you need to do something with it?"

Patty spun around fast enough to give her neck whiplash. " _Huh?_ Didn't Wes' soul dissolve like normal? On the roof where he died?" August stared at the wood grain of the table and said nothing. Patty's heart picked up. They couldn't ever fix the Evans family. They couldn't ever bring back Wes. But they could recover the last part of him left in this world.

He breathed out slowly. "At first I didn't even know what I was looking at. Before that moment, I had never seen one before in person. I was in shock. At a loss of what to do with it."

"We don't give a damn about any of that," Patty said urgently. "Where did you stash Wes' soul? Where the hell is it?"

August revealed his last, tantalizing secret, and Liz and Patty opened the office doors to the police.

Together, they walked past the bright police lights, the enormous house, and its paved walkway now stained with only a few flecks of Wes' blood after the light rain. Linking hands, Liz and Patty tramped back through the soggy, leaf-covered path in the woods. It was funny how a small journey could feel longer and more significant the first time, but fleeting the second. The Blight House, too, had lost its gloom and majesty. They wordlessly walked back through the front door, weaving around corners until they had returned to the kitchen.

Patty seized the pipe she had discarded on the kitchen floor. Her target, the old iron oven, was already weak from her earlier assault. She looked over her shoulder to get an approving look from Liz before raising the pipe over her shoulder and bringing it down on the chains securing the oven door.

 _CLANG!_

 _Groooooan._

The chains fell away in a clattering heap, and there was the loud keening of metal hitting tile as Patty dropped the pipe. Without the chains obscuring the oven itself, she could see now that it had two doors latched together. The sisters were silent as they knelt before the iron husk, placing a hand on each door handle. With a heave, they opened the doors at the same time, and for a brief moment the room was bathed in blue light.

Wes' soul bobbed inside, a shining beacon in musty darkness. Liz was the more gentle of the two sisters, so she reached inside and plucked the small, fragile thing.

When they returned, Officer Bollero had finally cuffed August and escorted him to her police car. Both were trying in vain to ignore the insults and curses hurled by Soul's bereaved father.

"Traitor!" Victor called from the porch. "Murderer! I'm ashamed to call you my brother! How could you _do_ this to us?" His voice broke, and his wife appeared from the shadows to wrap him in a tight embrace.

Soul emerged from the house beside his parents and watched the police cars drive away with a stone face. After the red lights disappeared around the bend, his eyes found Liz and Patty approaching the house. His face was a map of sorrow and grief, but in his eyes was also gratitude. Hopefully, a part of him was glad Patty handed him his own ass, if only to prevent him from making a huge mistake.

But then Soul saw what was cradled in Liz's arms, and his whole face went white.

"Where were you two?" Victor asked with suspicion. He held his wife protectively and maneuvered in front of Soul, like a shield. "You don't need to poke around our lives anymore. Please leave-Soul, where you going?"

Soul stepped off the porch like a sleepwalker, his gaze never leaving the bright soul glowing in Liz's hands. The soul's light illuminated his face, revealing the watery gleam percolating around his eyes.

"What is that?" Cressida asked. She and Victor were tentative as they ventured off the porch. "Soul? What's she giving you?"

With the utmost delicacy and care, Liz slid the soul into her friend's waiting hands. When the transferred occurred, Patty heard a weird, low tone, like a plucked guitar string or piano key echoing in the icy air. "It's him, Mom. Come over here and see," Soul said.

His parents were at his side instantly, and they stared with apprehension at the luminous orb Soul claimed was their eldest son.

"I want to hold him," Cressida said. "I made him, I raised him. Let me hold him."

They didn't speak as they cupped their hands around Wes-Cressida on the bottom, Victor the sides, and Soul on the top. Wisps of light peeked through their fingers and danced across their faces and reflected off their tears. Standing apart, Patty found the comfort of Liz's hand.

"Do you feel that?" Victor said suddenly. Patty and Liz glanced at one another, for they hadn't heard a single sound. "It's like...my god, he's _laughing_ at us."

Soul snorted softly. "He's laughing at me, that bastard. He probably thinks I look funny all red-faced."

His father nodded. "Well Wes' sense of humor is certainly dry _._ And it's true; you're more red than your mother after two sherries. _"_

Cressida snickered despite the deluge of tears rolling down her face, and Soul shared a loud head laugh with his father. This moment of catharsis, Patty thought, was something the family had desperately needed.

When their laughter calmed, Soul's mother bit her lip to stop a sigh. "Do we have to let him go? What am I saying, of course we do," his mother said, clearing her throat. "So, shall we then?"

The three let go of the soul at the same time, and parents and son stepped backwards so they tracked its ascendance. Huddled so closely together, the Evanses looked like a family, like a _real_ , united family. From the porch, Annette and her two children watched from afar, transfixed by the rising light.

Patty and Liz held hands and watched Wes' soul slowly float towards the sky, gradually growing more transparent with every foot it climbed. Just as it seemed to disappear, it emitted a final, blazing burst of light fitting for a soul as brilliant as Wes. With their hands clasped tight, the Thompson sisters felt their own spirits lift with him.


End file.
